jupyter_client: Cannot remove "native" Python 2 kernel

When you look at the help for jupyter kernelspec remove (jupyter kernelspec remove -h), it gives you this example command:

jupyter kernelspec remove python2

So this leads me to believe you can delete the python2 kernel, but in fact, if I try to, it tells me the kernel doesn’t exist:

[Anaconda2] C:\Users\ristew\PycharmProjects\ipywktest>jupyter kernelspec remove python2
Couldn't find kernel spec(s): python2

This is in spite of the fact that the python2 kernel is clearly installed:

[Anaconda2] C:\Users\ristew\PycharmProjects\ipywktest>jupyter kernelspec list
Available kernels:
  python2          C:\Users\ristew\AppData\Local\Continuum\Anaconda2\lib\site-packages\ipykernel\resources
  ipywktest        C:\ProgramData\jupyter\kernels\ipywktest
  pysparkkernel    C:\ProgramData\jupyter\kernels\pysparkkernel
  sparkkernel      C:\ProgramData\jupyter\kernels\sparkkernel

I had a look at the code and it seems like this is happening because of this line in jupyter_client.kernelspecapp.RemoveKernelSpec:

self.kernel_spec_manager.ensure_native_kernel = False

This line has the effect of “ignoring” the native kernel, as we see in jupyter_client.kernelspec.KernelSpecManager:

    if self.ensure_native_kernel and NATIVE_KERNEL_NAME not in d:
        try:
            from ipykernel.kernelspec import RESOURCES
            self.log.debug("Native kernel (%s) available from %s",
                           NATIVE_KERNEL_NAME, RESOURCES)
            d[NATIVE_KERNEL_NAME] = RESOURCES

So it’s impossible to delete the python2 kernel. I’ve tried this on both my Windows machine and a Linux machine, to no avail.

A couple questions:

1. Is it possible to work around this by e.g. deleting the folder where the kernel is located?
2. Is this the intended behavior or is it a bug? If it’s the intended behavior, can the documentation be updated to reflect this?