LONDON (AP) — The first Black woman to lead a major U.K. political party, Kemi Badenoch is an upbeat and outspoken libertarian who thinks the British state is broken — and that she's the one to fix it with smaller government and radical new ideas.
The new leader of Britain’s right-of-center Conservative Party was born Olukemi Adegoke in London in 1980 to well-off Nigerian parents — a doctor and an academic — and spent much of her childhood in the West African country.
She has said that the experience of Nigeria’s economic and social upheavals shaped her political outlook.
“I grew up somewhere where the lights didn’t come on, where we ran out of fuel frequently despite being an oil-producing country,” Badenoch told the BBC last week.
“I don’t take what we have in this country for granted,” she said. “I meet a lot of people who assume that things are good here because things are good here and they always will be. They don’t realize just how much work and sacrifice was required in order to get that.”
Returning to the U.K. aged 16 during a period of turmoil in Nigeria, she worked part-time at McDonalds while completing school, then studied computer systems engineering at the University of Sussex. She later got a law degree and worked in financial services.
In 2012, she married banker Hamish Badenoch, with whom she has three children.
She was elected to the London Assembly in 2015 and to Parliament in 2017. She held a series of government posts in the 2019-22 government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, before becoming part of a mass ministerial exodus in July 2022 over a series of ethics scandals that triggered Johnson’s downfall.
Badenoch ran unsuccessfully to succeed Johnson, boosting her profile in the process. She was appointed trade secretary in the 49-day government of Prime Minister Liz Truss, and business secretary under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
She held onto her seat in Parliament in July's national election, which saw the Labour Party win a huge majority and the Conservatives reduced to 121 lawmakers in the 650-seat House of Commons.
Like many Conservatives, Badenoch idolizes Margaret Thatcher, the party’s first female leader, who transformed Britain with her free-market policies in the 1980s. Citing her engineering background as evidence she’s a problem-solver, she depicts herself as a disruptor, arguing for a low-tax, free-market economy and pledging to “rewire, reboot and reprogram” the British state.
A critic of multiculturalism and self-proclaimed enemy of wokeness, Badenoch is an opponent of “identity politics,” gender-neutral bathrooms and government plans to reduce U.K. carbon emissions.
Supporters think her charismatic, outspoken style is just what the Conservative Party needs to come back from its worst-ever election defeat. During her leadership campaign, her backers wore T-shirts urging: “Be more Kemi.”
Critics say Badenoch has clashed with colleagues and civil servants and has a tendency to make rash statements and provoke unnecessary fights. During the leadership campaign she drew criticism for saying that “not all cultures are equally valid,” and for suggesting that maternity pay was excessive — though she later backtracked on that claim.
“I do speak my mind,” she told the BBC. “And I tell the truth.”
FILE - Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch addresses members during the Conservative Party Conference at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham, England, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung, File)
Britain's Member of Parliament Kemi Badenoch, smiles as she poses for the media after being elected as the new leader of the opposition Conservative Party, in London, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
JERUSALEM (AP) — An attack on a central Israeli town early Saturday injured 11 people as Iran's supreme leader vowed a punishing response to Israel's attack last week.
The predawn strike on Tira, which followed air raid sirens across central Israel, was one of several barrages fired from Lebanon early in the day. Many of the projectiles were intercepted by Israeli air defenses, while others landed in unpopulated areas.
The Magen David Adom emergency service said 11 people were hurt by shrapnel and glass shards in a direct strike on a building in Tira, a predominantly Israeli Arab town. Three were in moderate condition, while the others suffered milder injuries.
Footage showed significant damage to the roof and top floor of the three-story building and cars below.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group said on Saturday that it had used missiles and explosive drones to target military and intelligence facilities in northern and central Israel. It claimed responsibility for firing missiles toward the Israeli military’s Unit 8200 base in Glilot, on the edge of Tel Aviv, and for firing rockets toward military facilities in Zvulun. Hezbollah also said it had targeted central Israel's Palmachim Air Base with explosive drones, saying they “scored precise hits on targets."
Israel's military did not confirm whether any of the three Hezbollah targets had been hit and said it had no comment on the group's claims.
Hezbollah said the Saturday dawn missile attack directed at Glilot was in retaliation for the “massacres” that are being committed by Israel. Tira, is about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from Glilot.
Tamar Abdel Hai, a resident of Tira, said that the attack was frightening. “I call upon all the leaders in the Arab world and the leaders in Israel and to everyone who can help to end this war. It’s enough,” he said.
Hezbollah also said that its fighters fired salvos of rockets into northern Israeli towns including Dalton, Yesud HaMa’ala and Bar Yohai.
Israeli media showed images of damage reportedly caused by a drone that hit a factory north of Nahariya. The army said several drones crossed from Lebanon into Israel, one was intercepted but “fallen targets were identified in the area.”
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike on a southern suburb of Beirut on Saturday afternoon wounded 11 people, the Lebanese Health Ministry said. Israeli planes resumed strikes on on the southern suburb of Dahiyeh overnight Friday, following four day lull in the capital.
In a separate incident, a Lebanese ship captain was taken away by a group of armed men who landed on a coast north of Beirut, Lebanese authorities said Saturday. Officials said the incident occurred Friday at dawn and authorities are investigating whether Israel was involved.
There has been no immediate Israeli comment on the matter. In the past, Israel has carried out commando operations deep inside Lebanon to kidnap or kill Hezbollah and Palestinian officials.
The early Saturday attacks may be only a precursor to a more severe strike against Israel.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, on Saturday threatened Israel and the U.S. with a punishing response over attacks on Iran and its allies following Israel's Oct. 26 airstrikes that targeted Iran's military bases and other locations.
“The enemies, whether the Zionist regime or the United States of America, will definitely receive a crushing response to what they are doing to Iran and the Iranian nation and to the resistance front,” Khamenei said in video released by Iranian state media.
A further attack by Iran, which has already launched two direct attacks against Israel this year, could push the wider Middle East closer to a broader conflict. Israel is already battling the Iran-backed militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The fight against Hezbollah has weakened the group but has also taken a heavy toll on southern Lebanon and other parts of the country.
On Friday, Israel launched dozens of intense airstrikes across Lebanon’s northeastern farming villages, killing at least 52 people and wounding scores more, the Lebanese Health Ministry reported.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in 2023, more than 2,897 people have been killed and 13,150 wounded in Lebanon, according to a Health Ministry update early Friday. United Nations agencies estimate that Israel’s ground invasion and bombardment of Lebanon has displaced 1.4 million people.
Residents of Israel’s northern communities near Lebanon, roughly 60,000 people, have also been displaced for more than a year.
Israel has also stepped up its offensive against Hamas’ remaining fighters in Gaza, raising concerns about humanitarian conditions for civilians still there.
A series of Israeli strikes on Nuseirat, a refugee camp in central Gaza, killed at least 42 people, more than a half of them women and children, in 24 hours, Dr. Marwan Abu Naser, director of Al-Awda Hospital that received the casualties, told The Associated Press. A further 150 were wounded, he said.
The World Health Organization began a scaled-down polio vaccination campaign on Saturday, giving second doses to at-risk children only in Gaza City after providing first doses in multiple parts of northern Gaza, which has seen intense Israeli bombardment.
The second round was initially set to start Oct. 23 but was postponed due to lack of access amid intense Israeli bombing, mass evacuation orders and a lack of assurance about humanitarian pauses.
Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas militants killed roughly 1,200 people in Israel and took some 250 hostages back to Gaza. Health officials inside Hamas-run Gaza do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say more than half of the dead in the enclave are women and children.
Associated Press journalists Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Shlomo Mor in Tira, Israel, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war
Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
A man surveys damage to his car after projectiles fired from Lebanon hit a home in Tira, central Israel, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A man surveys a damaged room after projectiles fired from Lebanon hit a home in Tira, central Israel, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A view of a damaged home after projectiles fired from Lebanon in Tira, central Israel, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli police men work at the site where projectiles fired from Lebanon hit a home in Tira, central Israel, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Israeli police men work at the site where projectiles fired from Lebanon hit a home in Tira, central Israel, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A man looks at damaged building after projectiles fired from Lebanon hit a home in Tira, central Israel, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
