Kemi Badenoch has accused one of her Conservative leadership rivals of waging a dirty tricks campaign against her as she continues to consider running for the top job.
The shadow business secretary has hit out at her critics after a dossier emerged claiming she was behind anonymous blog posts written 17 years ago in which the author celebrated her rudeness and made abusive remarks.
Badenoch responded on social media that it was “amusing/alarming to see the lengths people will go to play dirty tricks”, saying that “apparently a leadership campaign sent a ‘dirty dossier’ of ‘strong comments’ from 20 years ago to the Westminster lobby”.
She added: “We can do better than this, and I will tell you more and write more about it in due course.”
Badenoch also said that much of the “discourse across the political spectrum is obsessed with the petty and the childish.”
The claims in the dossier were first published in The Spectator newspaper, which asked: “Could it be online comments by young Kemi Badenoch?” Some comments cited stereotypes about Thai and Nigerian women, while another called Diane Abbott a “hypocrite”.
Another said: “Most of the people who changed the world for the better were notoriously rude. It was the bad people, Idi Amin, Hitler etc who were charming and respectful. People like you would have defended them saying they were good people because they had good manners. Robert Mugabe was also known for his good manners!”
Badenoch’s friends said she had a user profile on the website, but that much of the content in the file came from another user who called herself “kemi”. They said it was a common name and there was a lot of impersonation on the website, and Badenoch could not remember which, if any, remarks she made.
Badenoch has yet to campaign alongside James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and Mel Stride, who all claim to have the support of the 10 MPs needed to make them Conservative leader. Her campaign said on Friday she was “not in danger of not having the necessary number”.
The former business secretary ran for the Conservative leadership after Boris Johnson resigned and came fourth, but is now considered a frontrunner, having won over members with her uncompromising right-wing views.
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel is also likely to run, while Suella Braverman, another former Home Secretary, is seeking support.
Stride was the latest Conservative MP to announce his intention to run for the party leadership, saying the Tories had “significantly lost the trust of the British people”.
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The former work and pensions secretary said on Friday morning he had secured enough parliamentary support to stand as a candidate in the party leadership race, which officially begins next week and will run until November.
The Central Devon MP told BBC Breakfast: “I am fully nominated. I was nominated yesterday morning and my application was validated.”
He added: “What we know from the general election is that we are in a very, very difficult situation as a party, and that worries me because I care about my party and my country.
“We have lost the trust of the British people and our reputation for competence, and I think I am in a very good position to address those issues in the future. In terms of trust, I think that [the party] “We need someone who can unify the party.”
