Kemi Badenoch is wrong about Labour and race

A surprisingly naive suggestion from the Conservative leadership front-runner has already been proven wrong time and time again

Kemi Badenoch is an intelligent woman. What she told The Telegraph this week, however, was hopelessly naive. She claimed that Labour would fear her as Tory leader because the Left “want to paint people on the Right as being prejudiced – and they know that with me there, they will be unable to make that case convincingly.”
Well, it would be nice to think so. But it certainly won’t stop them trying. On the contrary, they’ll get cracking straight away.
Just look at how people on the Left have treated other non-white Tories in recent years. Take Suella Braverman, for example. She isn’t white. And yet, because she said she wanted to cut immigration, the Left treated her as if she were the love child of Oswald Mosley and David Duke. 
In fact, they didn’t just view her as callous and hateful, they viewed her as a hypocrite – even a traitor – because her own parents had been immigrants. In effect, therefore, they were more furious with her than they would have been with a Home Secretary who was white.
Then there was Kwasi Kwarteng. Two years ago, the Labour MP Rupa Huq told a fringe event at her party’s conference that Mr Kwarteng was only “superficially” black, because “he went to Eton”. 
What on earth was that supposed to mean? That you can’t be both black and well-off? That “real” black people are poor, helpless, powerless victims who simply can’t cope without the support and generosity of the middle-class Left? That black people who do well for themselves have somehow stopped being black, and become, to all intents and purposes, white?
At any rate, the ensuing outcry over those comments cost Ms Huq the Labour whip – but not for long. After she’d apologised, she was soon given it back again.
This is why I can guarantee that Labour – or at least its activists and media cheerleaders – will indeed paint Mrs Badenoch as “prejudiced”. Especially if she proposes cutting immigration, or argues that all immigrants must respect British culture and values.
To be specific, the Left will treat her as a “coconut”: the race-based slur that means “brown on the outside, white on the inside”. That is, a non-white person who is somehow “betraying” other members of their race, simply by being a Tory. 
In this, the Left will be emboldened by the outcome of a recent trial. An anti-Israel protester had been charged with a racially aggravated public order offence for waving a placard that depicted two non-white Tories – Rishi Sunak and Mrs Braverman – as “coconuts”. But in court, the protester was found not guilty. The judge ruled that the “coconuts” placard was perfectly legitimate, because it was “part of the genre of political satire”.
In Left-wing circles, this outcome was greeted with triumphant glee. Because now they believe they can get away with calling all Tories racist – no matter what race they are.