KThe election of Emi Badenoch as leader of the Conservative party is a strikingly historic political and personal achievement. “By all accounts, I am a first-generation immigrant,” she told the House of Commons in her maiden speech in 2017.

She was born Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke in a British hospital in Wimbledon in December 1980 before her parents took her home to Nigeria. Badenoch was one of the last to benefit from the birthright rules that her heroine, Margaret Thatcher, would soon abolish in the British Nationality Act of 1981. She has compared her British passport to the golden ticket with which Charlie Buck entered Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory came in.

Badenoch’s migration journey has shaped her worldview. As a 16-year-old, she flew back to Britain in 1996 – a country where no black or Asian citizen had ever been a minister. She has said she became involved in politics as a “very angry youth,” and was pushed to the right because she felt patronized by career counselors and development activists who did not value African voices.

Badenoch says she wants skin color to be no more relevant than hair color – yet Kemi Badenoch’s identity politics often sound much more color-conscious than that. “I’m Labour’s worst nightmare, they can’t portray me as biased,” read the headline in a recent Telegraph interview. There is also tension in her call for migration policy to reflect how much cultural differences matter.

Badenoch’s own experience of opening up opportunities underpins her emphasis on Britain as the best country in the world to be black. Yet more than three-quarters of black Britons appreciated the message of the Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests in Britain – that the progress made has much more to do – while Badenoch mainly feared importing America’s racial conflicts to Britain.

She supported Tony Sewell’s research into ethnic differences in his attempt to reframe the narrative. But that turned the true story from an increasingly complex pattern of opportunities and outcomes into an extraordinarily polarized culture clash. As equalities minister, Badenoch pursued a much more constructive lower profile, such as her Inclusive Britain policy agenda, which aimed to reduce remaining gaps.

That has led some on the online right to now characterize her as too “woke,” while the left calls her a culture warrior on issues of race and gender. When asked during the GB News leadership debate whether it was time to call off the culture wars, Badenoch dismissed that label as a “dog whistle to attack the right”. “We defend our culture, we defend our country,” she said.

Kemi Badenoch versus Robert Jenrick was a fortuitous match after MPs playing tactical games accidentally eliminated James Cleverly. Robert Jenrick bet on Tory members choosing whoever offered the most red meat on immigration and human rights, in order to win back the votes lost to Nigel Farage. Tories have defied stereotypes by rejecting that offer.

By making opposition to the ECtHR a new Tory litmus test, Jenrick gifted Kemi Badenoch with new allies; George Osborne was among those surprised that he voted for her. Badenoch has somehow ended this struggle as a unity candidate for the ‘broad church’ within the party, despite her polarizing reputation outside it.

Keir Starmer’s instinct may be to avoid debates about Badenoch on issues of identity. There is a certain strategic significance in that. The success or failure of Rachel Reeves’ social democratic budget and its contrast with Badenoch’s instinct that the state must shrink significantly will largely define this era of British politics.

But governing an increasingly diverse Britain in volatile times requires an agenda to manage our differences and bring people together. Those who disagree with Badenoch’s identity politics should be able to set out what they would say and do instead.