The MP for Canterbury
Keir Starmer is still pretending Rosie Duffield doesn’t exist.
Rosie Duffield was snubbed from Sir Keir Starmer’s election launch event in Kent on Thursday – even though she is the only elected Labour MP in the county. The MP for Canterbury – who has angered many in her party for her stance on women’s rights – only found out about the event on social media. No Labour leader had visited Kent for years after Ms Duffield was elected in a shock 2017 victory.
He’s so determined to exclude her that he ignores the opportunity to big up his own launch event for the sake of blacklisting her.
The Labour leader was joined by Angela Rayner, his deputy, Naushabah Khan, the party’s local candidate, and several councillors from the area. It is believed Ms Duffield only found out about the event on X, formerly Twitter, after people messaged her to ask why she was not there.
She must have done something really terrible, yeah?
The Canterbury MP has angered many in her party for supporting the right of women to same-sex spaces such as toilets, changing rooms and rape crisis centres. She was also vilified by some for saying that only women have a cervix and that transwomen are not women. Ms Duffield was subject to an internal investigation after she was accused of anti-Semitism and transphobia, after which she was exonerated. However, Sir Keir never apologised to her about the ordeal. For years he refused to meet her, but then did so for the first time in Westminster earlier this month.
And now he’s conspicuously snubbing her yet again. Misogynist much?
It’s particularly infuriating because Duffield is exactly the kind of person you’d think the Labour party would want in politics: a “commoner” but there’s nothing common about her: she’s a courageous woman who ventured into politics out of sheer principle — free from the notions of class, status, and career that motivate so many people in the UK political class — and she’s been succeeding mightily in upholding those principles against all odds. By snubbing her, Starmer’s cronies are showing that their party has long abandoned all of its core principles. I had the pleasure of interviewing her on the podcast, where she spoke movingly about her allegiance with gay people’s rights, and how hurtful the unfounded accusations of bigotry lobbed against her have been. And I got to have dinner with her once in London, too. If that sounds like bragging, you bet it is! I couldn’t be more proud to be able to say that I know her. It’s a life achievement. She’s a true hero. In a decent future, she, and women like her, will be the leaders of the political left.
A highly justified brag!