Dawn Petula Butler

Dawn Petula Butler (born 3 November 1969) is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent Central since 2015.

Butler was elected as the MP for Brent South at the 2005 general election. She served in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government as Parliamentary Secretary for the Cabinet Office and Minister for Young Citizens and Youth Engagement from 2009 to 2010. She lost her seat at the 2010 general election to Sarah Teather (Liberal Democrat). She returned to Parliament as the MP for Brent Central at the 2015 general election.

In October 2016, she was appointed to the new role of Shadow Minister for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities by Jeremy Corbyn after his re-election as Labour Leader, later becoming a close ally of Corbyn.[3] In February 2017, she resigned from the Official Opposition frontbench to vote against the triggering of Article 50, which formally launched the Brexit negotiations.

She returned as Shadow Minister for Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in June 2017, before being promoted to the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn as Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities in August 2017. She stood in the 2020 Labour Party deputy leadership election and came last, in fifth place. She was removed from the Shadow Cabinet by new Labour leader Keir Starmer in 2020 and returned to the backbenches.