Kemi Badenoch has hit back at Sir Keir Starmer for joking about her comments on working at McDonald’s – saying he would face calls to resign if he were a Conservative prime minister.
Ms Badenoch, who replaced Rishi Sunak as Tory leader last month, has spoken extensively about her time working at the fast food chain.
She said while she grew up in a middle class family she “became working class” working there, arguing there was “humility” in the job she took on at 16, describing days cleaning toilets and “flipping burgers”.
Sir Keir Starmer mocked Ms Badenoch in a major speech yesterday, telling the audience in Buckinghamshire: “It’s great to be here at the iconic Pinewood Studios: the spiritual home of Britain’s film industry.
“You know, the leader of the Opposition thinks if you do a couple of shifts in McDonald’s, you become working class. So by that logic, if I keep coming back here – I could yet be the next James Bond.”
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In a speech on Thursday evening, Ms Badenoch said Sir Keir would “never have dared” to joke about working in McDonalds if she was a “left-wing activist”.
“The truth is that the left are not that interested in ethnic minorities except as a tool to fight their battles against the right,” she said.
“In fact, just this morning the British prime minister made a joke about how I worked at McDonald’s.
“He would never have dared to do that, if I was a left-wing activist.
“And if a Conservative prime minister had made those comments about a black party leader, they would have been called a racist and asked to resign.”
When asked by reporters about Ms Badenoch’s comments on Friday afternoon, the prime minister’s spokesperson said he had “nothing to add”.
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During the Tory leadership campaign, where she competed against now shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, Ms Badenoch said her time at McDonald’s was the “first time I ever interacted properly with people who didn’t come from the sort of background that I came from”.
“I grew up in a middle class family, but I became working class when I was 16 working at McDonald’s,” she told Chopper’s Political Podcast with Christopher Hope.
“Just understanding how many people there were single parents, and they were working there to make ends meet.
“There’s a humility there as well. You had to wash toilets, there were no special cleaners coming in. You had to wash toilets, you had to flip burgers, you had to handle money.”