'Clearly Appalling': Yvette Cooper Slams Dawn Butler Over Kemi Badenoch 'White Supremacy' Tweet
Yvette Cooper has condemned a social media post shared by Labour MP Dawn Butler describing Kemi Badenoch as “white supremacy in black face”.
The home secretary described it as “clearly appalling” amid calls for the backbencher to be stripped of the Labour whip.
Butler, the MP for Brent East, shared the post on X after Badenoch was elected Tory leader on Saturday. She then deleted it.
The post, by black journalist Nels Abbey, said: “Warning: Seven rules for surviving a Kemi Badenoch victory.
It read: “Today the most prominent member of white supremacy’s black collaborator class (in Britain) is likely to be made leader of the Conservative Party. Here are some handy tips for surviving the immediate surge of Badenochism (i.e. white supremacy in blackface).
“Don’t allow yourself to be gaslit. Of course, a victory for Badenoch is an obvious, unprecedented and once inconceivable victory for racism…
“Don’t get arrested… The police don’t do nuance, and they conveniently refuse to understand black and brown intra-communal language or forms of critique, satire or compliment e.g. coconut, Uncle Tom, Aunt Kemi, house negro, choc ice etc.”
On LBC this morning, presenter Nick Ferrari asked Cooper: “Your colleague Dawn Butler has reposted a social media post which said that Kemi Badenoch ... represents ‘white supremacy and blackface’.
“She’s taken the post down but why hasn’t she been suspended?”
The home secretary said: “I didn’t see the post but clearly strongly disagree with that and I think that the prime minister congratulated Kemi Badenoch on her election to be leader of the Conservative Party.”
Ferrari then said: “If a chief constable used language like that, he or she would be at the very least suspended while there is an investigation. Dawn Butler takes the post down and that’s the end of it? There’s no further action against Ms Butler?
Cooper replied: “As I said I haven’t seen the post, and I think those sorts of issues around party issues are always ones for ther whip. What I can say is I think it is right to congratulate Kemi Badenoch on her election.”
Ferrari went on: “When a politician of some note reposts language such as ‘the black face of whiute supremacy has broken the glass ceiling for all black people’, that is a racist sentiment isn’t it?”
Cooper repeated that she “strongly disagree” with the post and then added: “The words that you have read out are clearly appalling and I would strongly disagree with them.”