Rosie Duffield tells it like it is – or at least some of it

JVL introduction

The right-wing press has relished the resignation letter of an MP not known for dissenting from Labour’s rightward drift, hailing it as – in the words of the Daily Express – “a dagger through the heart of Starmer.”

Merciless criticism of the prime minister from Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury in Kent, has baffled centrists and been broadly welcomed by  socialists, who are nonetheless looking somewhat askance at her dramatic move.

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi gives a brief overview.

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Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield’s excoriating letter of resignation from the Labour Party, posted below, has provided endless entertainment for Keir Starmer’s foes across the political spectrum – and with good reason.

The Times which first published it on September 28, less than three months after Starmer entered Downing Street, said it made her “the fastest MP to jump ship after a general election in modern political history”.

The Telegraph said Duffield has “penned the best denunciation of Starmer you’ll ever read,” taking apart “Labour’s incestuous clique – and the Puritan hypocrite at the heart of it.” The Daily Express called it  “a dagger through the heart of Starmer.”

It has been gratifying to see Starmer hung out to dry by one of his own, for his lack of principle, “cruel and unnecessary policies”, “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice”, hypocrisy over accepting gifts, heavy-handed management tactics, lack of true or inspiring leadership, contempt for backbenchers and their constituencies, shameful treatment of Diane Abbott, and so on and so on.

So far so absolutely amazing.

There is however something a little strange about Duffield’s dramatic move. Never a friend of Jeremy Corbyn or the movement around him, she has a history of conflict with the left in her own constituency where she was elected in 2017.

One of her criticisms of Starmer is that he didn’t speak up about “the Labour Party’s problems with antisemitism” when he was in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet.  In 2018 she suggested MPs could go on strike if the party didn’t adopt in full the IHRA definition of antisemitism favoured by Israel’s apologists. She clashed with local members over her attendance at anti-Corbyn events  and support for pro-Israel Labour MP Luciana Berger. Starmer’s craven policies towards Israel, complicity with genocide in Gaza and terrorist attacks in Lebanon, Yemen and Syria, are not on her list of criticisms.

On matters closer to home, as noted in the Independent, “Duffield has previously abstained on votes to cut the winter fuel payment and ending the two-child benefit cap – both issues which her letter cites as contributing to her departure. Apparently they’re issues that she believes in so vehemently that they’re worth resigning over, but not actually voting on.”

Thoughts of abandoning Labour are not actually that new for Duffield. In January 2022 she said she was considering leaving because she had faced “obsessive harassment” over her views on trans and women’s issues, and Starmer had given her no more support than Corbyn.

The Canary wondered what is truly behind Duffield’s resignation. How come it is she, rather than members of the Socialist Campaign Group in Parliament, seven of whom are currently suspended for voting with their consciences on the two-child benefit cap, who has jumped ship? Does she actually oppose what’s going on, or is she taking her revenge over the party’s failure to support her against attacks for her views on gender?

Liverpool Socialist Independent councillor Alan Gibbons expressed the views of many on the left when he posted on X:

“A bit much when Rosie Duffield, hardly a consistent socialist, resigns making many correct observations on Labour’s rightward drift and some longstanding left wingers can’t make the final jump to join a new socialist movement and party.”

Whatever Duffield’s true motivation, we can at least hope that her resignation marks a turning point in the parliamentary party’s acquiescence in Starmer’s toxic regime.

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Resignation letter from Rosie Duffield, MP for Canterbury, formerly Labour, now Independent

Dear Sir Keir,

Usually letters like this begin, “It is with a heavy heart…” Mine has been increasingly heavy and conflicted and has longed for a degree of relief.

I can no longer stay a Labour MP under your management of the party, and this letter is my notice that I wish to resign the Labour Party whip with immediate effect.

Although many “last straws” have led to my decision, my reason for leaving now is the programme of policies you seem determined to stick to, however unpopular they are with the electorate and your own MPs.

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 one of us in Parliament. They are cruel and unnecessary, and affect hundreds of thousands of our poorest, most vulnerable constituents.

This is not what I was elected to do. It is not even wise politics, and it certainly is not “the politics of service”.

I did not vote for you to lead our party for reasons I won’t describe in detail here. But, as someone elevated immediately to a shadow cabinet position without following the usual path of honing your political skills on the backbenches, you had very little previous political footprint. It was therefore unclear what your political passions, drive or direction might be as the leader of the Labour Party, a large movement of people united by a desire for social justice and support for those most in need.

You also made the choice not to speak up once about the Labour Party’s problems with antisemitism during your time in the shadow cabinet, leaving that to backbenchers, including new MPs such as me.

Since you took office as Leader of the Opposition you have used various heavy-handed management tactics but have never shown what most experienced backbenchers would recognise as true or inspiring leadership.

You have never regularly engaged with your own backbench MPs, many of whom have been in Parliament far longer than you, and some of whom served in the previous Labour government.

You have chosen neither to seek our individual political opinions, nor learn about our constituency experiences, nor our specific or collective areas of political knowledge. We clearly have nothing you deem to be of value.

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.

In particular, 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.

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 return to power.

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 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.

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 or remorse?

I now have no confidence in your commitment to deliver the so-called “change” you promised during the General Election campaign and the changes we have been striving for as a political party for over a decade.

My values are those of a democratic socialist Labour Party and I have been elected three times to act on those values on behalf of my constituents. Canterbury made history when its voters elected their first woman, and only non-Conservative, MP since the seat was created in the thirteenth century.

My constituents elected an independent-minded MP who vowed to put constituency before party, and to keep tackling the issues that most affect us here — Brexit fallout, funding for our universities, our desperately struggling East Kent NHS, dire housing situation, repeated sewage pollution and protecting our vital green spaces.

I am confident that I can continue to do so as an independent MP guided by my core Labour values.

Sadly, the Labour Party has never shown any interest in my wonderful constituency in the seven years that I have been in Parliament. But I am proud of my community and will continue to serve them to the best of my ability.

My constituents care deeply about social issues such as child poverty and helping those who cannot help themselves. I will continue to uphold those values as I pledged to do when I first stood before them for election in 2017.

As someone who joined a trade union in my first job, at seventeen, Labour has always been my natural political home. I was elected as a single mum, a former teaching assistant in receipt of tax credits. The Labour Party was formed to speak for those of us without a voice, and I stood for election partly because I saw decisions about the lives of those like me being made in Westminster by only the most privileged few. Right now, I cannot look my constituents in the eye and tell them that 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 before the greed of the few.

Yours sincerely,

Rosie Duffield MP