Rishi Sunak, who lost the July election as Conservative leader, liked to say he was proud to be the UK’s first British-Asian prime minister – but “prouder that it’s not that bad.”

Badenoch was born in the United Kingdom and raised in Nigeria, before returning to London as a teenager to complete her education and attend university.

In 2023, she called Britain “the best country in the world to be black” – drawing applause from right-wing newspapers and a torrent of criticism from progressive pundits.

But it is a real source of pride for the Conservatives – who are recovering from a major election defeat earlier this year – that they have just chosen their second consecutive leader from an ethnic minority and their fourth female leader . The party’s first ethnic minority leader was Benjamin Disraeli, who first served as Prime Minister in 1868.

Sunder Katwala, director of the think tank British Future, said there was initially “slow progress” in non-white representation in Parliament after the election of four black Labor MPs in 1987.

But that was followed by a “rapid acceleration” after 2010 – and real progress among conservatives long pilloried for lack of diversity.