Dawn Butler: I’m mistaken for other black female MPs at least once a week

Labour deputy leadership hopeful talks about ‘exhausting battle’ of calling out racism in politics

Dawn Butler, the Labour deputy leader candidate, has revealed she is mistaken for other black female colleagues “at least once a week” and described her “exhausting battle” to be correctly identified, after the BBC confused her with fellow MP Marsha de Cordova earlier this month.

The senior Labour MP, who was the first black woman to speak at the dispatch box in 2009, said she had been becoming ‘immune” to being mixed up with colleagues, but felt it necessary to speak out this time because she did not want newer MPs to suffer the same misidentification.

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