Will Dawn Butler lose the whip?

With his super-majority in the Commons, Keir Starmer isn’t afraid of losing the odd MP or two. Back in July he was was willing to remove the whip off seven of his colleagues after they had the effrontery to dare vote against lifting the two-child benefit cap. So the case of Dawn Butler – the gaffe-machine otherwise known as the Honourable Member for Brent East – offers a useful test case for how seriously Sir Keir takes matters of discipline.

Butler yesterday shared a social media post accusing Kemi Badenoch of representing ‘white supremacy in blackface’ and suggesting her election amounted to a ‘victory for racism’. It also called the new opposition leader ‘the most prominent member of white supremacy’s collaborator class’. Butler has since deleted the post – but not before it triggered an outcry. Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s first black Chancellor, put it neatly thus on the Camilla Tominey Show earlier today:

She’s got form on this.