In summer 1926 Butler resigned his residential Cambridge fellowship to go on a honeymoon tour of the world, becoming instead a supernumerary fellow. He renewed his contact with Leo Amery, whom he had met in July 1924 at a British Empire Students Conference, and who now put him in touch with contacts in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Whilst in Vancouver in June 1927, he learned of a vacancy for the safe Conservative seat of Saffron Walden, and returned from Quebec by sea on 31 August 1927; Courtauld connections arranged for him to be selected unopposed as the Conservative candidate on 26 November 1927. Butler toured local villages showing films of his Empire tours.