Liz Truss confirms Kemi Badenoch in line for top cabinet role if she wins Tory leadership race
Liz Truss (left) and Kemi Badenoch (right). (Getty/ Ian Forsyth and ITV via Getty/ Jonathan Hordle)
Liz Truss has confirmed that she will place Kemi Badenoch in a top cabinet role should she win the Tory leadership race and become prime minister.
Truss and Rishi Sunak are continuing to battle it out and win the support of around 150,000 Tory party members. The winner of the Tory leadership race, who will both become Conservative Party leader and the prime minister of Britain, will be announced on 5 September as parliament returns.
Speaking on The People’s Forum with Liz Truss, aired by GB News, Truss confirmed on Wednesday night (10 August), that she would be appointing Badenoch to a top position in her cabinet if she were to win.
She said: “Kemi, I’ve worked with her as women and equalities minister. You know, we’ve taken on a lot of the agenda of people who are trying to deny that women were women and so on.
“So I think she is absolutely brilliant and I would definitely want her as part of my team if I am successful.”
This is incredibly disturbing. Kemi Badenoch is a “culture wars” zealot – focusing on targeting minorities in preference to addressing the important issues like the #CostOfLivingCrisis
We need serious change, not just a changing of the guards! #EnoughIsEnough https://t.co/t4ZcJZ8ZCC
— Protect Trans Kids🏳️⚧️✊🏻💕 (@mimmymum) August 10, 2022
Having Badenoch in a top cabinet position is a bleak prospect for the LGBTQ+ community.
Badenoch was initially in the running for Conservative party leader but, despite garnering support from the fascist far-right group Britain First, was knocked out in the fourth round of voting by Tory MPs last month.
In 2020, Badenoch was appointed Minister of State for Equalities, despite previously describing trans women as “men using women’s bathrooms” and asking: “We’ve got gay marriage and civil partnerships, so what are transsexuals looking for?”
During her time in the Government Equalities Office (GEO), Badenoch held secret meetings with the LGB Alliance, faced constant calls for her resignation over her office’s handling of the conversion therapy ban, and skipped a key meeting on Gender Recognition Act reforms, while also allegedly holding meetings with so-called “ex-gay” groups and her defence of anti-trans professor, Kathleen Stock.
She resigned from her position in the GEO last month during a mass exodus from Boris Johnson’s government.
The prospect of Truss becoming prime minister is becoming more and more likely.
According to The Independent, recent Ipsos polling shows that Sunak’s popularity has been waning among Conservative voters.
In the middle of July, the majority of 2019 Tory voters said Sunak would make a good prime minister, but just 10 days later, that proportion fell to 42 per cent.
Conversely, Truss’s support is growing – during the same period, the proportion of Tory voters supporting her rose from 46 per cent to 53 per cent.
