Kemi Badenoch is ‘wrong and strong' – particularly when it comes to the two-child benefit cap

Independent

4 days ago

Kemi Badenoch is using 'Opposition Day' to force through a vote in order to prevent the Labour Party scrapping the two-child benefit cap that was put in place in 2017 by her own party.
How fitting, from the woman who complained that maternity pay was 'excessive' and said people should exercise 'more personal responsibility'.
The cap, you see, restricts the number of children that parents can claim certain benefits for – such as Universal Credit and Tax Credits – to just two per family.
It currently affects nearly 1.7m children in the UK and has been described by some campaigners, including the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), as a 'brutal policy' that makes children's 'lives hard and their futures bleak'. The group also said that scrapping it altogether would be the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty.
But Badenoch doesn't want to do that. Instead, she posted on X that the reason that she is determined to keep the cap is because 'families on benefits should make the same responsible decisions about having children as everyone else'.
'It is about fairness,' she claimed. 'Most working families plan their finances carefully. They budget based on what they can afford.'
Now, it's no secret that in the past I haven't been especially complimentary about Badenoch. I have constantly rejected the idea that I, as a Black woman, should feel inspired – simply to see a Black female leader of the Conservative Party.
I don't see anything good that this woman does for the Black community. She says she does not care about historical issues that still impact us to this day, such as colonialism. She fails to acknowledge systemic racism in the UK – saying Britain is 'the best place in the world to be Black' and arguing that Britain 'isn't racist' – and in many ways, such as when she uses phrases like 'ethnic enemies' to talk about northern Nigeria, I'd argue she's actually taking us backwards.
And now, in all of Badenoch's rants about those on benefits having babies, she has failed to consider people who have families aren't always on benefits before they have kids. People can easily lose jobs or have a partner die. The two child benefit cap doesn't take into consideration that in life, sometimes 'stuff happens'.
But Badenoch is an intelligent woman – I'm sure she realises this. So why is she so shamelessly expressing such a contentious point of view? We have an expression in Caribbean culture where we describe particularly hard headed individuals who refuse to concede their position, despite the fact it is clearly the incorrect one, as 'wrong and strong'. Badenoch exemplifies 'wrong and strong'.
For a good illustration of how she operates, Badenoch described Reform as 'another left wing party'. They've stormed ahead in the polls, causing some to describe them as the 'unofficial opposition'. Farage has indicated that if he were ever to make it as prime minister, he would 'scrap the cap', too. Meanwhile, the Tory Party trail behind in third place. The defection of former party chairman, Jake Berry, to Reform was a particularly embarrassing blow.
The Tories are now forcing this vote in parliament in order to use it as a wedge issue between themselves and Reform, who are hoovering up their voters as well as pinching their politicians. A foolish mistake, if ever I saw one.
Reform are by no stretch of the imagination a left wing party. But what they do have is a lot of working class support, many of whom are probably affected by the two child benefit cap. They intend to clamp down hard in areas like immigration and DEI, following the example of the Trump administration.
They are catering to their fanbase – and the Tories are foolish to try and challenge them from the right, because they simply can't win. You can't out-Farage Farage.
Labour are guilty of doing the same thing – and have duly been forced into embarrassing U-turns by the members of the so-called 'welfare rebellion' on the backbenches, who are rightly trying to force Starmer to keep his electoral promise to make significant progress in reducing child poverty.
There are also notable threats to both Labour and the Tories coming in from the flanks – the Green Party are making some significant strides in filling the gap left on the left who feel abandoned by Starmer; and the Jeremy Corbyn-Zarah Sultana coalition could make a serious dent on the political landscape (even if not quite in the way they may hope).
If Badenoch wants to continue to lead the Tory Party, full stop – let alone lead them into the next general election – she needs to stop targeting women and poorer families and prove she understands one thing: people.