Mike Phipps reviews A Purposeful Life, by Dawn Butler, published by Penguin.

Dawn Butler made an electrifying speech in 2005 at her Brent South Labour candidate selection meeting which enabled her win the contest outright, beating the favourite, one of Tony Blair’s policy advisors; but I must admit my enthusiasm waned a bit after she became my MP.  She didn’t at first seem very dynamic or assertive, which are vital attributes in a workplace brimming with misplaced over-confidence and entitlement – not to mention preening narcissism.

In 2009, she was embroiled in the parliamentary expenses scandal, which at best you might charitably put down to inexperience – especially as party whips had reportedly encouraged MPs to claim generous expenses, rather than pursue an above-average pay rise, which would not look good. In 2010, boundary changes led to two sitting MPs battling for one new Brent Central seat, and she lost to the Lib Dems.

But Dawn had the tenacity to fight back and regained the seat in 2015. My enthusiasm was rekindled when I sold her a ‘Jez We Can’ t-shirt at a Labour Party branch social that summer. I was selling these  in an attempt to drum up some interest in Jeremy Corbyn’s unlikely Party leadership bid. She not only bought one, but changed into it straightaway. Given that Corbyn’s leadership prospects still looked pretty slim at that time, this struck me as a brave thing to do. Most politicians go out of their way to avoid committing themselves in this way – or in any way.

Avoidance, however, isn’t really Dawn’s thing. Dodging difficult choices would not have seen her elected  as only the third Black woman MP, the first to ever speak at the despatch box, and later ejected from the House of Commons for calling Prime Minster Boris Johnson a liar in 2021.

Her courage comes across in this book. Brought up in a working class neighbourhood in East London, she had to deal with racism from an early age – including from teachers. She learned to stand up for herself, backed up by a supportive family.

Working in her father’s bakery as a teenager, she learned the importance of teamwork. Later, recruited as a Job Centre manager, she encouraged her workers to join a trade union for their own protection.

Unsurprisingly, she experienced police racism early on, which might explain her rather world-weary reaction when the car she was travelling in one Sunday afternoon in 2020 was stopped by officers in what looked to many like a clear case of racial profiling. Her filming of the incident on her phone gave it considerable publicity; yet she received death threats about this and still gets abuse on social media.

Discriminatory attitudes abounded on the parliamentary estate as well – from other MPs and various staff: Dawn Butler has a desk drawer with several letters of apology in it. Yet the more subtle but equally relentless attempts to marginalise her contribution as a Black, working class woman representative are less easy to call out and get action on.

In 2015 Dawn became Chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party and tried to remain fair and non-factional at a time when the majority of PLP members were hell-bent on attacking the new leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Dawn had nominated Jeremy, in order to ensure he could be on the ballot, but had not in the end voted for him. But this was enough to get her forced out of the Chair’s role by Corbyn’s enemies. She was replaced by the notorious attention-seeker Jess Phillips, whom Dawn acidly reminds us, “rose to fame for allegedly telling Diane Abbott, the first Black female MP, to ‘fuck off’ during a parliamentary meeting.”

After the 2019 general election defeat, Dawn Butler ran for Labour’s Deputy Leadership but was hampered by a shortage of the funds needed to mount a convincing campaign. In the summer of 2020, she spoke at several events about ‘Black Lives Matter’ following the killing of George Floyd in the US, as well as about how the Covid pandemic was disproportionately affecting people of colour. Abusive messages poured in and her constituency office windows were smashed.

Late in 2021, Dawn was floored by a diagnosis of breast cancer. Ten hours in surgery and a spell in intensive care followed. Her workaholic life ground to a halt and the months of recuperation taught her to re-evaluate her priorities.

But the drive remains. “I implore people to take themselves out of their comfort zones,” she writes. “If we allow the government to strip us of our rights – the right to protest, the right to vote, the right to decent pay – they will stop at nothing to shut us all down…. We must keep fighting.”  

In July, Dawn was one of only ten Labour MPs to vote against the government’s ‘anti-boycott Bill’ which “seeks to prohibit local authorities, universities and public sector pension funds from engaging in ethical considerations in procurement and investment.” It was another example of uncowed independent-mindedness.

One criticism: the book feels like a bit like a run-through of Dawn’s career highlights. She skips over her working life before becoming an MP: it would be good to read more about her trade union organising days. I’d also like to hear more about her ministerial work under Gordon Brown and her time as part of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow team, from which she quietly resigned in February 2017, before bouncing back  six months later. Perhaps in Volume Two?

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.