Labour MP Rosie Duffield resigns as she slams Keir Starmer’s ‘cruel’ winter fuel axe _ Hieuuk
Labour MP for Canterbury Rosie Duffield has resigned citing, in part, Sir Keir Starmer’s acceptance of more than £100,000 in gifts including football tickets, clothing and accommodation.
A Labour MP has resigned citing Keir Starmer’s freebie row and his ‘cruel’ policies. (Image: Getty)
Rosie Duffield has resigned as a Labour MP citing the party’s “cruel and unnecessary policies” in a bitter blow to Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
In doing so, Duffield, 53, becomes the fastest MP to resign following a general election victory in history.
In a lengthy resignation letter, Ms Duffield pointed to the controversy over freebies in addition to the removal of the winter fuel allowance and failure to remove the two-child benefit cap as the reasons for her decision.
Ms Duffield said: “You repeat often that you will make the ‘tough decisions’ and that the country is ‘all in this together.’ But those decisions do not directly affect any of us in parliament.
“They are cruel and unnecessary and affect hundreds and thousands of our poorest, most vulnerable constituents.”
Ms Duffield also pointed towards the Prime Minister’s “heavy-handed” management style whilst criticising him for failing to show “what most experienced backbenchers would recognise as true or inspiring leadership.”
The accusations of heavy-handedness are not new, with the prime minister being criticised by some for unnecessarily removing the Labour whip from six MPs who voted to remove the two-child benefit cap, a vote Labour won convincingly anyway.
He was also criticised after hastily suspending a Labour candidate during the general election for placing a bet against himself- a common tradition for aspiring MPs.
The row which has engulfed the Labour Party this week over senior MPs’ acceptance of luxury gifts seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for Ms Duffield who has served as MP for Canterbury since 2017.
She said: “The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once-proud party.
Rosie Duffield has been a backbench MP since 2017. (Image: Getty)
“Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of these people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.
“Forcing a vote to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for — why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment?”
It emerged on Friday that Keir Starmer had accepted more than £30,000 of designer clothes by Labour peer Lord Alli – a figure higher than many people’s yearly income.
The revelations came on the back of controversy over Angela Rayner’s acceptance of Lord Alli’s New York penthouse for a holiday, Bridget Phillipson’s acceptance of a range of hospitality tickets and Lucy Powell’s extravagant trips to huge sporting events.
Angela Rayner is one of a host of senior Labour MPs to have received luxury gifts. (Image: Getty)
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Ms Duffield is set to be prepared for a Labour backlash following her decision. She will now sit as an independent candidate in the House of Commons.
According to Political Correspondent for Politics Joe Ava Santina, at least one Labour MP was pleased with Duffield’s decision texting: “Good Riddance.”
Duffield has been a long-time critic of Labour’s policy on women and is a close friend of J K Rowling who has also been vocal in her views.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Duffield said: “With my [gender critical] views, all I wanted was for those views to be taken seriously and discussed and I think as a movement the Labour Party has shifted and we are talking about those things now.”
Ms Duffield has apologised to her constituents who less than three months ago re-elected her as a Labour candidate.
She said: “I never wanted to have to make this decision and I am deeply sorry that the Labour Party is not the Labour Party that I signed up to represent but the Labour Party now does not seem to represent the values that I have always had that haven’t changed.
“I am still someone with Labour values and my constituents know that those are still the causes that I will champion and I still very firmly believe in social justice and the green agenda and all the other things that chime particularly [in my] constituency, but I can’t pretend any more that the Labour Party represents me or them.”
Labour MP for Canterbury Rosie Duffield resigned earlier today as a result of the party’s “cruel and unnecessary policies”.
Rosie Duffield has quit Labour. (Image: Getty)
Rosie Duffield sensationally quit the Labour Party earlier today, citing Sir Keir Starmer’s “cruel” policies – including the axing of the winter fuel payment – and “hypocrisy” over his acceptance of gifts.
In her extraordinary resignation letter, published by the Sunday Times, the Canterbury MP slammed Sir Keir and his “inner circle” for allowing “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” to run rampant in the party.
She wrote: “I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.
“The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once-proud party.
“Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.”
Duffield will now sit as an independent MP.
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Who is Rosie Duffield?
Rosie Duffield has been MP for Canterbury since the 2017 general election. Born on June 18, 1981, in Kent, Duffield grew up in a politically active family, which influenced her engagement with social issues from an early age.
Before entering politics, Duffield worked as a teacher and also held various roles in the local community, including in education and support services. Her commitment to public service and education shaped her political outlook, leading her to focus on issues such as social justice, education reform, and women’s rights.
In Parliament, Duffield has been an outspoken advocate for women’s rights and has participated in discussions surrounding gender equality. She gained significant media attention for her strong stance against certain aspects of gender identity politics, particularly concerning women’s spaces and rights. This position has garnered both support and criticism.
Duffield has also been involved in local issues in Canterbury, advocating for improvements in public services, housing, and education. Her constituency work has made her a prominent figure in the Labour Party, and she continues to engage with her constituents on various social and economic issues.
Despite facing challenges and controversies, Duffield has been a significant voice within the Labour Party.
JK Rowling defends Rosie Duffield for her for quitting Labour over its ‘sleaze’ – as Keir Starmer’s furious MPs rage she should never have been allowed the ‘privilege of resigning’
JK Rowling has defended MP Rosie Duffield after she sensationally quit the Labour party over its ‘sleaze, nepotism and greed’.
In a blistering broadside, Ms Duffield, 53, slammed Sir Keir Starmer over his ‘cruel and unnecessary’ policies and ‘staggering hypocrisy’ amid the ‘freebies’ scandal.
Her savage remarks sparked a furious backlash from Labour MPs, with one raging Ms Duffield should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning.
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But in an extraordinary intervention, Harry Potter author Rowling, 59, waded into the political maelstrom to champion the MP.
In response to Labour MP Nadia Whittome’s criticisms of Ms Duffield over her critical views on transgender rights, Rowling said: ‘Rosie Duffield was one of the few female Labour politicians with the guts to stand up for vulnerable women and girls, while self-satisfied numbskulls like you fought to give away their rights and spaces.
‘TL;DR [too long, didn’t read] Keep her name out of your mouth.’
JK Rowling has defended MP Rosie Duffield after she sensationally quit the Labour party over its ‘sleaze, nepotism and greed’
In a blistering broadside, Ms Duffield, 53, slammed Sir Keir Starmer over his ‘cruel and unnecessary’ policies and ‘staggering hypocrisy’ amid the ‘freebies’ scandal
Labour MP Nadia Whittome said Ms Duffield ‘should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning’
She was replying to Ms Whittome’s post which said: ‘No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society.
‘She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.’
Choosing not to reply to Ms Whittome herself, Ms Duffield simply reposted Rowling’s post defending her.
In Ms Duffield’s explosive resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer, she criticised his ‘cruel and unnecessary policies’ including the decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and means-test the winter fuel payment, while accusing the Prime Minister of ‘hypocrisy’ over his acceptance of free gifts from donors.
Ms Duffield blasted the PM for throwing the electorate’s ‘sacred and precious trust’ in its face ‘and in the faces of Labour MPs’.
She also used her letter to deliver a scathing attack on Sir Keir’s leadership style, including his ‘various heavy-handed management tactics’, adding he had shown neither ‘true nor inspiring leadership’.
In the letter published by the Sunday Times she said: ‘Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous.
‘I cannot put into words how angry I and my colleagues are at your total lack of understanding about how you have made us all appear.’
She added: ‘The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.’
Ms Duffield used her resignation to deliver a scathing criticism of what she called the PM’s ‘heavy-handed management tactics’ and lack of inspiring leadership
Rosie Duffield’s full resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer
The Tories have since rounded her decision to leave the Labour Party, with Tom Tugendhat saying it demonstrates the Government is ‘about self-service’.
As he arrived at Conservative Party Conference, the Tory leadership hopeful told the BBC: ‘I think she has made her point very clearly hasn’t she?
‘Which is that the Labour Party and Keir Starmer’s Government is not about service, it is not about delivering for the British people, it is about self-service.
‘We need to return our government to service, we need to demonstrate the leadership that this country needs, and that is exactly what I am here to do.’
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Asked if he would invite Ms Duffield to join the Conservatives, Mr Tugendhat said: ‘That is really a decision for her, but I think she is an extraordinary voice, she has stood up for women’s rights, she stood up for the dignity of individuals across our country, and I think she is a fantastic advocate.’
Pressed again on the matter, he said Ms Duffield has been a ‘socialist for many years’, adding: ‘I strongly suspect she won’t be asking.’
Ms Duffield was first elected as a Labour MP in the 2017 snap election, taking the Kent seat from the Conservatives.
She started her letter: ‘Usually letters like this begin ‘It is with a heavy heart… ‘. Mine has been increasingly heavy and has longed for a degree of relief.
‘I can no longer stay a Labour MP under your management of the party.’
She added that while there had been many ‘last straws’, but accused the PM of stressing ‘tough decisions’ that ‘do not directly affect any one of us in Parliament’.
She continued: ‘This is not what I was elected to do. It’s not even wise politics, and it certainly is not ‘the politics of service’.
The MP further hinted in her letter that she didn’t support Sir Keir to become Labour leader in 2020, because of the PM’s little ‘previous political footprint’, suggesting he had gained a shadow cabinet position without ‘the usual path of honing your political skills on the backbenches’.
Ms Duffield branded Sir Keir’s politics as neither ‘wise’ or the ‘the politics of service’, and accused him of regularly repeating the need to make ‘tough decisions’ which do not directly affect MPs
She also attacked the PM’s ’embarrassing’ promotion of people without ‘proven political skills and no previous parliamentary experience, but who happen to be related to those close to you’.
She wrote: ‘As Prime Minister, your managerial and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long fourteen years to be mandated by the British public to be returned to power.
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‘How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?!
‘The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.’
Her letter continues: ‘I now have no confidence in your commitment to deliver on the ‘so-called’ change you promised during the General Election campaign and the changes we have been striving for as a political party over a decade.’
Ms Duffield also attacked Sir Keir’s record on antisemitism, claiming he left speaking up against former leader Jeremy Corbyn to ‘backbenchers like me’, while taking aim at the Prime Minister’s ‘heavy-handed management tactics’.
And in an attack on the wider party, she accused Labour of showing no interest ‘in my wonderful constituency’ during her seven years in the Commons.
She finished by saying that she hoped to return to Labour when it ‘resembles the party that I love’.
‘As someone who joined a trade union in my first job, at seventeen, Labour has always been my natural home.
‘Right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them anything has changed. I hope to be able to return to the party in the future, when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many over the greed of the few.’
In July, the MP spoke out against Sir Keir’s support of the ‘overtly sexist’ two-child benefit cap, which she likened to something from Margaret Attwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale.
She has also previously criticised the Prime Minister’s position on gender ideology.
Rosie Duffield in 2021. The MP accused the Prime Minister of throwing the nation’s ‘sacred and precious trust’ in its face
The resignation is the latest blow in a difficult week for the Government, amid ongoing questions over donations accepted from Labour peer Lord Alli, and the Prime Minister’s use of his Covent Garden penthouse
Her resignation comes after a difficult week for the Government, as a row over ministers accepting freebies from donors deepened on Friday with the revelation that Sir Keir had received another £16,000 in free clothes from Labour peer Lord Alli.
It brought the total amount accepted by the Prime Minister for clothing from Lord Alli to £32,000.
Questions have also mounted over Sir Keir’s use of the Labour peer’s £18million penthouse flat in Covent Garden, where the PM stayed during the election period in June, and also recorded clips advising Britons to stay at home during the pandemic, and a tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II following her death in 2022.
Labour has also refused to answer queries over Lord Alli’s Downing Street pass, since withdrawn, which previously allowed him to attend meetings on national security grounds.
The Prime Minister is also facing accusations of having a conflict of interest in accepting Arsenal football tickets and hospitality – all while his government is about to introduce legislation to create a regulator for the sport.
