At the time, there was a marriage bar for women diplomats, and Butler worked unpaid at the embassy in Havana until 1971, when she was re-employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) on contract.
[9] On 9 November 2005, in a statement to the House of Commons, Norman Baker said[10] I want to put on record that we have an exceedingly effective ambassador in Georgina Butler who now covers both countries.
In October 2013, she was announced as one of those standing for the party in the European Parliament election of 2014 in South West England, together with Ashley Fox, Julie Girling, James Cracknell, Sophia Swire, and Melissa Maynard.
[11] [12] Butler said during the campaign that she hoped her experience of diplomacy would give her a stronger hand in helping with Cameron's renegotiation of Britain's EU membership and delivering a referendum on it in 2017, if the Conservatives were to win the next general election.
[15] In December 2019, she was appointed as a Special Representative of the Foreign Secretary for greeting Heads of State and overseas government visitors on arrival in the United Kingdom.
Her husband, Robert Kelly, a retired Canadian foreign-service officer, then worked without pay as project manager for medical clinics in Costa Rica funded from the British embassy.