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Labour MP Rosie Duffield is quitting the party over Sir Keir Starmer’s acceptance of free gifts and his “cruel” policies such as cutting the winter fuel allowance.
The MP for Canterbury, who was elected in 2017, has long been at odds with Starmer’s leadership, particularly on issues of sex and gender — but her voluntary departure less than three months after the general election is thought to be the swiftest in British political history.
On Saturday evening the 53-year old published a letter accusing the Labour prime minister of “staggering and increasingly outrageous” hypocrisy.
Labour has been engulfed in a row about the acceptance by Starmer and other senior ministers of freebies including tens of thousands of pounds of clothing from Lord Alli, a Labour peer.
“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,” 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 those people can grasp — this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour prime minister.”
Duffield asked Starmer why he was not showing “even the slightest bit of embarrassment” about accepting free family trips to events while cutting the winter fuel allowance.
Rachel Reeves, chancellor of the exchequer, is planning to restrict the allowance to old people receiving pension credit in order to save about £1.4bn for the exchequer as part of her efforts to improve the nation’s finances.
But the move has been widely criticised by charities, trade unions and some Labour backbench MPs. Delegates at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool this week backed a motion calling for it to be reversed.
Duffield said she hoped one day to return to the Labour party, which had always been her natural political home as a single mother, union member and former teaching assistant in receipt of tax credits.
But she said her constituents wanted an independent-minded MP who would put constituency before party and therefore she hoped to continue to represent the seat.
Duffield has previously spoken out about feeling unsupported by the Labour leadership over her views on trans issues, including her belief that people who are biologically male should not enter some protected spaces, such as domestic violence refuges.