Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield has cited Sir Keir Starmer’s “cruel policies” and freebies row as the reason behind her historic decision to resign the Labour whip with “immediate effect”.
Duffield, who became the first Labour MP to represent the leafy Kent seat in 2017, waited just 86-days since the 2024 General Election to jump ship.
The 53-year-old became the fastest MP to quit the whip in modern political history after writing a blistering letter to the Prime Minister today.
Duffield condemned Starmer for accepting gifts worth £107,000 since 2019, especially items of clothing from Labour peer Lord Alli.
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.”
Taking aim at the Prime Minister over his decision to retain the two-child benefit cap and axe Winter Fuel Payments, Duffield wrote: “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.”
She added: “Forcing a vote [on the Winter Fuel Payment] 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?”
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Starmer suspended the whip from a cabal of Corbynista MPs after seven rebels voted for an SNP amednment to axe the two-child benefit cap from the King’s Speech.
The Prime Minister, who defended his decision to scrap the £300 pensioner perk during his conference speech this week, also suffered a major blow on Wednesday when Labour MPs encouraged him to U-turn on his policy.
However, Starmer’s donor row appears to have ruffled some feathers after it emerged yesterday that the Prime Minister received a further £16,000 of clothing donations from Lord Alli, bringing the total to £32,000.
The Scottish National Party has written to the House of Commons standards commissioner; the independent adviser on ministerial interests, Sir Laurie Magnus; and the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, demanding an investigation into what the party claimed had become Starmer’s “version of the MP’s expenses scandal”.
Attacking Starmer for so-called hypocrisy, Duffield later wrote: “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.
“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 Canterbury MP, who was formerly a teaching assistant, will now sit as an independent after years of speculation about a defection to the Tories.
Duffield appeared to hint disaffection from former Labour colleagues looms for Starmer, claiming “household names” are “really angry and really frustrated”.
She added: “I don’t know if anyone else will leave. I think most people feel they have got to stay and fight inside the party and I did that to the best of my ability for as long as I could … but this is the end of the road for me for now.”
Duffield, who is a friend of Harry Potter author JK Rowling, has been at loggerheads with Starmer ever since being embroiled in a row with the Prime Minister over whether “only women have a cervix”.
However, the ex-Labour MP denied her decision to sit as an independent had anything to do with her ongoing gender row.
She told The Sunday Times: “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.
“I and others put it on the agenda by basically being very loud about women’s rights and I am glad it is now a mainstream discussion, but that’s not why I am leaving the Labour Party. The Labour Party has left me.”
