Florida’s rightwing governor backs Badenoch’s ‘war on woke’
Florida’s rightwing governor, Ron DeSantis, has backed UK business secretary Kemi Badenoch in taking on what he calls “the woke”.
DeSantis, who is expected to challenge Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential electoin, met Badenoch and foreign secretary James Cleverly on a visit to London this week.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, DeSantis said Badenoch had offered her support for his “war on woke”, which has included a bitter legal battle with Disney after the company questioned a Florida law aimed at limiting discussion of homosexuality and gender in schools.
DeSantis said: “She complimented what we are doing in Florida. She committed that it is what they are trying to do in Britain. She pointed out, and I think it’s true, that some of the woke has been exported from the United States.”
“I commend her and her efforts to make sure that this is not corrupting British society.” His staff tweeted a picture of him and Badenoch, describing them as “two great conservative fighters on a mission”.
Some of DeSantis’s views would be considered far outside mainstream UK politics – he recently signed a law to ban abortion in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, for example.
He won a landslide re-election to the governorship last year and describes his state as “where woke goes to die”. He has not yet formally announced his candidacy for next year’s presidential race but is widely expected to stand.
DeSantis told the Sunday Telegraph: “At the end of the day you cannot have a successful society if it is being operated by woke ideology. It is fundamentally at odds with reality and facts and truths, and ultimately a society needs to be grounded in truth.”
The Florida governor has taken his battle
Read more on theguardian.com
