Dawn Butler | |||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2020 | |||||||||||||
| Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office | |||||||||||||
| In office 3 November 2009 – 11 May 2010 | |||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown | ||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Tom Watson | ||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Caroline Nokes[a] | ||||||||||||
| Minister for Young Citizens and Youth Engagement | |||||||||||||
| In office 30 October 2009 – 11 May 2010 | |||||||||||||
| Prime Minister | Gordon Brown | ||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Office established | ||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Office abolished | ||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
| Member of Parliament forBrent East Brent Central (2015–2024) | |||||||||||||
| Assumed office 7 May 2015 | |||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Sarah Teather | ||||||||||||
| Majority | 13,047 (34.5%) | ||||||||||||
| Member of Parliament forBrent South | |||||||||||||
| In office 5 May 2005 – 12 April 2010 | |||||||||||||
| Preceded by | Paul Boateng | ||||||||||||
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished | ||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||
| Born | Dawn Petula Butler (1969-11-03)3 November 1969 (age 56) Forest Gate, London, England | ||||||||||||
| Party | Labour | ||||||||||||
| Other political affiliations | Socialist Campaign Group | ||||||||||||
| Website | www | ||||||||||||
Dawn Petula Butler (born 3 November 1969) is a BritishLabour Party politician who ismember of parliament (MP) forBrent East. She previously served as MP forBrent Central (2015–2024) andBrent South (2005–2010).
Born in London to Jamaican parents, prior to entering politics Butler served as a trade union officer and adviser to themayor of London,Ken Livingstone. She was elected as the MP forBrent South at the2005 general election. She served in Prime MinisterGordon Brown'sgovernment asParliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office andMinister for Young Citizens and Youth Engagement from 2009 to 2010. Her seat was abolished prior to the 2010 general election, being replaced byBrent Central, which was won by Liberal Democrat candidateSarah Teather. She returned to parliament as the MP for Brent Central at the2015 general election. Initially a supporter ofAndy Burnham, Butler later became a close ally ofJeremy Corbyn during his tenure asLeader of the Opposition.
In October 2016, Butler was appointed to the new role ofShadow Minister for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities by Corbyn following hisre-election as Labour leader. In February 2017, she resigned to vote against the triggering ofArticle 50, which formally launched theBrexit negotiations, but returned to the portfolio in June of that year before being promoted to theShadow Cabinet asShadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities in the August. She stood in the2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election and came last, in fifth place. She was removed from the Shadow Cabinet by new Labour leaderKeir Starmer in 2020 and returned to thebackbenches.
Butler was born Dawn Petula Butler[1] inForest Gate ineast London,[2] toJamaicanimmigrant parents Milo and Ambrozene Butler; she has one sister and four brothers.[3][4] She was educated atTom Hood School inLeytonstone andWaltham Forest College, both in London.[3] She worked as an officer of theGMB Union, including time as a national race and equality officer. Butler was also an adviser to themayor of London,Ken Livingstone, on employment and social issues.[4]
Butler first sought selection to be a Labour parliamentary candidate inHackney South and Shoreditch but was unsuccessful.[5] Butler put herself forward for selection forWest Ham in 2005 but was not selected.[6][7] Following the retirement ofPaul Boateng to becomeBritish High Commissioner to South Africa, she was selected as the Labour candidate in Brent South and retained the seat for her party at the2005 general election with a majority of 11,326.[8] She was the thirdblack woman to become a British MP afterDiane Abbott andOona King.[5]
Interest in youth services continued as one of her main interests in parliament. On 24 October 2006, she was appointed chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Youth Affairs, and she is an honorary vice president of theBritish Youth Council. AfterGordon Brown became prime minister in June 2007, Butler was made one of the Labour Party's six vice chairs, with particular responsibility for youth issues.[9][10]
In 2006, Butler voted against investigations into theIraq War. She subsequently voted against investigations a further six times up until 2016.[11] She explained that this was because she believed that it would be wrong to hold investigations "while we still had troops in Iraq ... If you held an inquiry while the troops were still out there doing their best to fight for the country, it would have been soul-destroying for them."[12]
She was appointed to theSelect Committee on the Modernisation of the House of Commons shortly after her election, and served onstanding committees. In November 2007 she was appointed to theChildren, Schools and Families Committee. Earlier (in November 2005), she had been promoted toParliamentary Private Secretary to thehealth ministerJane Kennedy, but decided to stand down from this post in early 2006. She was promoted toassistant whip on 12 September 2008.[13]
In January 2009, Butler received an endorsement from US presidentBarack Obama.[14] She initially denied that her office had written it but later corrected herself and clarified that the endorsement had been written by her staff with the consent of Obama's aides, then signed by Obama when they met.[15]
Butler was named female MP of the year at the 2009 Women in Public Life awards.[16][17] Following her appointment asMinister for Young Citizens and Youth Engagement, Butler became the first black woman to speak from thedespatch box in the House of Commons in December 2009.[18] She later said that Conservative MPs "tried to belittle me at that moment in history", specifying that one Tory MP "took great delight in telling me that ‘upskilling’ was not in the English dictionary".[12]
In March 2009, Butler was criticised for claiming the second home allowance, despite her main home inStratford being the same distance from parliament as her Brent South home; however, her office stressed that she moved into the Wembley house after being elected in 2005 to allow her to serve her constituents.[19][20] Following a number of errors in 2005–8, which resulted in a £2,600 overcharge,[21] and after discussion with the Parliamentary Fees Office, most of the overcharge was offset against later expenses, with the remainder repaid.
Butler's constituency ofBrent South was abolished at the2010 general election. Its territory was mostly divided between two constituencies: a newBrent Central seat and a re-drawnBrent North. Butler was selected as the Labour candidate in Brent Central but lost toSarah Teather, theLiberal Democrat candidate, who had been the MP forBrent East, which had also been abolished at the general election.[22]
During her time outside of parliament, she worked creating learning programmes for companies.[12]
In 2013, Butler was selected as the Labour candidate for Brent Central at thegeneral election in 2015.[23] Prior to the election, Teather had announced she would stand down from parliament, so she did not contest the seat. Butler was returned to parliament with a majority of more than 19,000 votes.[24]
Butler is a former chair of the Women's Parliamentary Labour Party. Following a vote in September 2016, she was succeeded byJess Phillips.[25][26]
Butler supportedAndy Burnham in the2015 Labour Leadership Election.[27][28][29] However, she 'lent' her nomination toJeremy Corbyn to ensure he was on the ballot.[28]
AfterJeremy Corbyn was re-elected leader in 2016, Butler was appointed as Labour'sShadow Minister for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in October 2016.[30]
In February 2017, Butler resigned from Corbyn's frontbench before the vote on the second reading in the House of Commons of theEuropean Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017, which triggeredArticle 50.[31] The vote carried athree-line whip instructing Labour MPs to vote in favour.[32]
In March 2017, Butler usedBritish Sign Language to ask a question in the House of Commons about giving this language legal recognition.[33] She was reappointed as Shadow Minister for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in June 2017.[34] In the same month, she launched a new cross-party parliamentary group, the Parliamentary Black Caucus, concerned with ethnic minority issues.[35]
In August 2017, following the resignation ofSarah Champion, Butler was promoted to theShadow Cabinet as theShadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities.[36] In February 2018 she appointed businessmanAnthony Watson as an LGBT+ advisor.[37]
In September 2018, she argued that the actions of theMilitant-dominatedLiverpool City Council in the early 1980s could be an inspiration for current Labour councils faced with public-sector funding constraints.[38] In the same month, Butler was promoted to a ShadowSecretary of State title, as it was announced that Women and Equalities would be upgraded to a full government department under a Labour government.[39]
In October 2019, one of Corbyn's advisors accused Butler ofhomophobia after she said that "90 per cent ofgiraffes are gay", while arguing that homosexuality is not something that is taught, at thePinkNews awards.[40][41]
In February 2020, Butler was criticised following an interview withRichard Madeley onGood Morning Britain during which she stated that: "A child is born without sex".[42] She was taking part in a debate about reactions to updates to theGender Recognition Act 2004 which were proposed by the governingConservative Party.[43] Butler later said that she was referring togender neutrality, where people can identify asnon-binary.[44]
Butler was reelected in the2019 general election.[45] Butler became the first candidate to declare candidacy in the2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election.[46][47] She has been described as a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn and often sat by Corbyn's side on the opposition frontbench in parliament.[48][49] Butler ultimately received 50,255 (10.9%) of first preference ballots, the least of the five candidates, eliminating her from the contest and seeing her second preference votes redistributed to the remaining candidates, withAngela Rayner ultimately winning the contest.[50] In an interview in August 2020, she was critical of the large costs involved in campaigning in the deputy leadership election, stating she did not think that an internal election should mean a candidate should have to spend a lot of money.[12]
Following the election ofKeir Starmer asLeader of the Labour Party, Butler was not appointed to the newShadow Cabinet and was succeeded byMarsha de Cordova.[51]
In July 2020, Butler was forced to close her constituency office due to increased costs of maintaining premises, and alleged escalating racist threats towards her and her staff, which increased following an article she wrote defendingBlack Lives Matter protests in the UK.[52][53]
In an interview withThe Guardian published on 4 August 2020, Butler called for the resignation of theMetropolitan Police commissionerCressida Dick, and the end ofStop and Search powers in the UK, which she called "discriminatory".[12]
Butler accused the Metropolitan Police ofracial profiling after she was in a car inHackney which was stopped by police on 9 August 2020, as they wrongly believed the car was registered in North Yorkshire, saying "there's people who have been coming into the area". Butler then said that this experience shows the Metropolitan Police isinstitutionally racist. The police officers involved admitted they made a mistake and apologised.[54][55][56] ThePolice Federation of England and Wales responded that she was mistaken and called for body worn camera footage to be released. They criticised her for not allowing them to policeLondon.[57]
In September 2020, Butler was criticised after she praised, in a tweet later deleted,Extinction Rebellion protestors who blocked the printworks of several major newspapers.[58][59]
Butler was criticised for her failure to sign on to theBoard of Deputies of British Jews' "Ten pledges to end the antisemitism crisis"; she stated that "I haven't signed the 10 pledges because I want theEHRC report to be implemented in the party. And then we sit down with the Board of Deputies,JLM, the other Jewish groups, and we have a discussion about where we go next. I don’t want to rush this. It’s too important to rush it and we have to get it right".[60][61][62]
In April 2021, Butler was one of a number of MPs who signed a letter to the government opposingvaccine passports.[63]
On 8 July 2021, theCrown Prosecution Service authorisedCheshire Police to charge a 70-year-old man fromWarrington with sending an offensive message to Butler.[64] On 17 August 2021, he was handed a six-week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.[65]
On 22 July 2021, Butler was ordered to leave the House of Commons by acting deputy speakerJudith Cummins, after she made comments calling the Prime Minister Boris Johnson a liar. After being asked to reconsider her comments, she remarked "Madam Deputy Speaker, what would you rather: a weakened leg or a severed leg? At the end of the day, the Prime Minister has lied to this house time and time again."[66]
In June 2022, she wrote in favour of thevote of confidence in the Conservative Party leadership of Boris Johnson.[67]
In the2024 United Kingdom general election she contested the newly formed constituency ofBrent East.[68] In the election she was re-elected with a reduced majority.[69] Following the election Butler was a candidate to be chair of theScience, Innovation and Technology Select Committee.[70]
Butler supported claims from Caribbean countries for slavery reparations to be paid to them by the British.[71]
In November 2024, Butler was criticised by Tory MP's for retweeting a post from British-Nigerian author Nels Abbey, which described newly elected Conservative Party leaderKemi Badenoch as "the most prominent member of white supremacy's black collaborator class". Butler quickly deleted the retweet. Abbey later said that his original comments were intended as "clearly satirical" and intended as a sketch. He defended Butler, stating that many in the black community might not see Badenoch’s leadership as a positive due to her political stance. Several Conservative politicians called on Starmer to suspend Butler, stating that Starmer had suspended the whip from Labour MPs who had made remarks about senior black Conservatives in the past.[72] Starmer did not suspend the whip from Butler but did state that Butler "shouldn't have said what she did".[73]
In 2025, she joined theMainstream political organisation ofAndy Burnham.[74]
Butler was diagnosed withbreast cancer in December 2021 and underwent amastectomy.[75]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forBrent South 2005–2010 | Constituency abolished |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forBrent Central 2015–present | Incumbent |
| Political offices | ||
| New office | Shadow Minister for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities 2016–2017 | Vacant |
| Vacant | Shadow Minister for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities 2017 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities 2017–2020 | Succeeded by |