In a resignation letter for the ages, she takes apart Labour’s incestuous clique – and the Puritan hypocrite at the heart of it
Honestly, you think this Government can’t fall any further, then it drops a few more feet. Three months after winning a landslide, two days after his triumphant conference, Keir Starmer is hit by an MP quitting the whip. It’s Rosie Duffield, and with a resignation letter for the ages.
The party will insist she was always an odd one; out of step on trans issues, occasionally accused of bigotry. But she isn’t your classic hard-Left troublemaker. Elected in 2017 in true-blue Canterbury, probably thanks to a Remainer realignment, Duffield is prominent and much liked: a soft-Left backbencher who people have heard of.
She served briefly as an opposition whip. She has taken on the extremists and been harassed for her reward. Duffield’s letter thus gives the insight of someone who wanted the new New Labour project to work and is thoroughly disappointed.
The problems, it seems, begin with Starmer himself. I’ve never read a better indictment of the man.
He was, she charges, swiftly over-promoted in opposition. Weirdly silent on Corbyn’s flaws; it was always unclear what motivated him. Since becoming leader and PM he has used “heavy-handed management tactics” and refused to engage with backbenchers.
This part stands out: “Your promotion of those with no proven political skills and no previous parliamentary experience but who happen to be related to those close to you, or even each other, is frankly embarrassing.” The Government that boasts it is uniquely representative of the working-class often looks like an incestuous clique.
Its double-standards extend to attacking the Tories on sleaze and then bringing Labour into disrepute via donorgate. Cutting the winter fuel payment and refusing to abolish the two child benefits cap while “accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most… people can grasp.”
I’ve struggled to decide exactly why what Keir did is so offensive – no cash was stolen, no taxpayers’ money misappropriated – but Duffield, being of the Left herself, instinctively puts her finger on it. Starmer is a Puritan hypocrite. Worse, as is typical of fanatical prudes, he can’t even see his own sin.
“Why,” asks Duffield, “are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment or remorse?” Because he believes he is pure, Rosie. Hell is stuffed with people who would insist they did nothing wrong, which is half the reason they ended up there.
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