As if the Labour party hasn’t inflicted enough damage on London, Dawn Butler, the staggeringly inept MP for Brent East, is considering a future mayoral bid. God help us. Even by the appallingly low standards of London Labour – the party that gave us Ken Livingstone and Sadiq Khan – the prospect of a Dawn Butler mayoralty is enough to make me start planning my escape beyond the M25.
You would hope that Butler’s track record would disqualify her from serious consideration for her party’s candidacy. And yet, this being London Labour, her distinctive brand of hard left bile might actually work in her favour
For those fortunate enough to be unfamiliar with Butler, let’s consider some of her greatest hits. In 2019, she was forced to apologise after claiming there were 3,000 people sleeping rough in her constituency. The real number was 248. The year before, while serving as Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow equalities secretary, she spoke approvingly about the far-left Militant tendency in Liverpool, claiming that when it came to austerity it was ‘better to break the law than break the poor.’
In 2024, she said she agreed with the actor David Tenant’s disgraceful statement that Kemi Badenoch shouldn’t exist. She also shared a post accusing the Tory leader of ‘white supremacy in blackface’ and of being ‘the most prominent member of white supremacy’s black collaborator class.’ Seemingly of the view that black women who reject identity politics are race traitors, she once posted a bizarre video online in which she rapped that her ‘beautiful mahogany brown’ skin makes her ‘the chosen one’. If only there was a word for people who believe their skin colour bestows superiority.
