28 September 2024 , 20:56
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Rosie Duffield has resigned as the Labour MP for Canterbury, becoming the first MP to jump ship since the General Election.
Duffield, who has represented the Kent constituency since 2017, will now sit as an independent after giving up the whip today.
In her resignation letter, she criticised Keir Starmer over the high price tag gifts he and his wife received from Lord Alli.
The prime minister has received more gifts and freebies than any other MP since becoming Labour leader in 2019.
His declared gifts total £107,145, with £39,122 from the millionaire Lord Alli including clothing, glasses and accommodation.
Between this and Starmer restricting payments that help retirees with winter heating costs, Duffield said she had little choice but to quit Labour altogether.
She also criticised the decision to keep the two-child benefit cap, which restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in most households.
Duffield wrote: ‘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,
‘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.’
The government announced in July that it would means-test the Winter Fuel Allowance, an annual payment of at least £200 once available to anyone over 66.
Around 11.4 million pensioners qualified for the payment, with the plan cutting it to just 1,500,000 of the poorest and most vulnerable people instead.
The government won a vote on the plan 348 votes to 228 earlier this month. Fifty-three Labour MPs abstained or were absent with one voting against.
On the controversial policy, Duffield said: ‘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 [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?’
Her resignation, first reported by The Times, comes after years of being increasingly isolated over her views on trans rights.
Duffield has, among other remarks criticised by LGBTQ+ rights campaigners, described trans women as ‘male-bodied’ and insisted that trans women should not have access to domestic violence shelters and single-sex toilets.
She stressed earlier this year that she is ‘anti-trans’.
‘With my 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,’ she told The Times.
‘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.’
As an independent MP, Duffield is no longer part of any political party.
Duffield said that the Labour will always be her ‘natural home’.
‘I hope to be able to return to the party in the future,’ she wrote, ‘when it again resembles the party I love, putting the needs of the many before the greed of the few.’