Sir Keir Starmer has a problem with women and is surrounded by “lads” in No 10, Rosie Duffield has claimed.

The MP for Canterbury quit the Labour Party on Saturday night over the freebies scandal, accusing the Prime Minister in her resignation letter of presiding over “sleaze” and “apparent avarice”.

Ms Duffield has been a vocal critic of the party in the last few years over its handling of trans issues but insisted that it was the freebies row that caused her to quit.

But asked by the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg whether she believed Sir Keir had a “problem with women”, the MP said: “I’m afraid I do, yes.”

“I mean I have experienced it myself, but most backbenchers I’m friends with are women and most of us refer to the men that surround him, the young men, as ‘the lads’ and it’s very clear that the lads are in charge.

“They have now got their Downing Street passes, they are the sa me lads who were briefing against me in the papers and other prominent female MPs and I was really hoping for better but it wasn’t to be.”

‘Deeply shameful’

Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, later rejected the claim, and said that there were elements within Ms Duffield’s resignation letter that he did not “accept”. Asked whether he was one of “the lads”, Mr McFadden said: “I think I’m a bit too old to be a lad.”

He added: “I see ministers turning up to work every day and what’s on their mind is how to stabilise the economy and get it growing again, how to turn around the NHS, how to get more houses built, how to improve rights at work for people, how to get more opportunity into schools.

“That’s what the ministers around that Cabinet table are focused on. They believe in public service.”

Ms Duffield, who has been the MP for Canterbury since 2017, also cited in her letter the handling of the row over whether Diane Abbott should be re-admitted into the party.

She wrote: “The recent treatment of Diane Abbott, now Mother of the House, was deeply shameful and led to comments from voters across the political spectrum. A woman of her political stature and place in history is deserving of respect and support, regardless of political differences.”

‘Daily revelations of hypocrisy’

The backbencher also said that she was “ashamed” of the revelations surrounding gifts and donations accepted by the Prime Minister and other Cabinet ministers.

She told Kuenssberg: “I’m ashamed that we stood up rightly and condemned the last few years of what we saw as Tory sleaze and all of the things that brought politics into disrepute, and we have always held ourselves up as a party that’s better, that would do better, that would clear out the rot and here we are.

“And it’s daily revelations of hypocrisy and grubby presents and things. I can’t believe what I’m reading every single day.”

Sir Keir’s top team includes several senior female figures, including Sue Gray, his chief of staff, Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, and Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister.