Starmer’s Labor on greed and power

Rosie Duffield has told the BBC that Sir Keir Starmer’s team is “more about greed and power than about making a difference” in her first broadcast interview since leaving the Labor Party.

In her resignation letter, published by the Sunday Times, the Canterbury MP criticizes the Prime Minister for accepting gifts worth tens of thousands of pounds while waiving the winter fuel payment and maintaining the two-child benefit cap.

In an interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Sunday, Duffield said Labor voters and MPs were being “exploited” and “taken for granted”.

Duffield, who will now sit as an independent MP, said quitting the party was “not at all what I wanted to be”.

Speaking to the BBC, Duffield said Labor was “in my heart and in my soul”.

“It is deeply disappointing for me as a Labor voter and activist to see what we have become,” she added.

After days of revelations about donations and the leadership’s refusal to apologize, she said the leadership appeared to be “more about greed and power than about making a difference… I just can’t take anymore.”

Duffield, who previously clashed with party leadership over women’s rights, resigned on Saturday.

She said: “We all had our faith in Keir Starmer and a Labor government and I feel like voters, activists and MPs are being completely laughed at and taken completely for granted.”

Termination letter

In her letter, she said the “revelations” since the change of government in July had been “shocking and increasingly outrageous.”

“I cannot express how angry I and my colleagues are at your complete lack of understanding of how you make us all look like this.”

First elected in 2017, Duffield’s decision to quit the party follows the suspension of seven other Labor MPs who rebelled against the King’s Speech and voted for a motion calling for the cap on the two-child benefit to be scrapped.

The total number of independent MPs in Parliament is now 14.

Duffield’s letter said she intended to serve as an independent MP “guided by my core Labor values”.

Cabinet minister Pat McFadden told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg he was disappointed but not surprised that Duffield had left Labour.

“I think she had long been disillusioned with the party leader and the party in general.

“I don’t think this has developed in the last few months,” he said.

In July, the government said the winter fuel payment to pensioners would only be paid to low-income people who received certain benefits, prompting an outcry from MPs and campaigners.

The move to means test the payments has come under fire internally and externally, with the Unite union winning a non-binding vote at the party conference last week. But ministers argue that “difficult decisions” had to be made due to the previous Tory government’s “unknown” overspending.

The Prime Minister came under fire after it was initially revealed that he had received more than £16,000 from Labor colleague Waheed Alli for work clothes and glasses, as well as other donations for his wife.

Sir Keir also campaigned for accepting £20,000 accommodation from Lord Alli during the election campaign so his son could sit his GCSEs without the media outside his home.

McFadden defended Lord Alli’s donations and said the government would make changes to the ministerial code so that ministers would have to declare any hospitality, in the same way that backbenchers and shadow ministers currently have to do.

In her resignation letter, Duffield continued: “The harassment, nepotism and apparent greed are excessive. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to damage and humiliate our once proud party.”

She added: “Someone with well above average wealth chooses to maintain the Conservatives’ two-child limit on benefits, trapping children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts in the form of designer suits and glasses that cost more “than most of these people can understand – that is completely unworthy of holding the title of Labor Prime Minister.”

Duffield and Sir Keir have had a long-standing strained relationship.

But the fact that she has chosen to take office as prime minister so soon and to criticize him so bitterly is a surprise and certainly damaging to the prime minister.

Your letter is prefaced by none of the niceties that sometimes accompany such farewells. Instead, it is consciously and publicly about him, his leadership, his policies and his behavior.

Those around Sir Keir were certainly hoping that criticism of the donations would subside and that his Downing Street could move on and focus on “delivery”.

Duffield’s letter has brought the issue back into the spotlight and Labor MPs’ unease over the means testing of the winter fuel allowance.

It has given Sir Keir’s critics ammunition. The Conservatives will no doubt quote them liberally at their party conference this week.

In her letter, Duffield also criticized the prime minister for promoting people without “demonstrable political skills” and said he was “immediately promoted to a shadow cabinet position without going through the usual route of honing his political skills on the backbenches.” “.

Sir Keir was given a shadow cabinet role at the Home Office in 2015, just two months into his term as an MP, and in turn appointed several newly elected MPs to junior ministerial posts in 2024.

One of them, Foreign Secretary Hamish Falconer, is the son of Sir Keir’s first shadow attorney-general Lord Falconer, while Liam Conlon, son of No 10 Chief of Staff Sue Gray, has been appointed parliamentary adviser to the Department for Transport.

Duffield’s relationship with senior figures in the party has been strained, particularly over her views on transgender issues – where she had used social media to state her own position.

She believes there should be safe spaces that natural-born men are not allowed into, such as domestic violence shelters and prisons, and she is against allowing people to identify as transgender to gain access to these spaces.

Differences with Sir Keir emerged again in this year’s general election campaign when he was questioned about his previous criticism of her stance on trans issues.

The party had previously launched an investigation into her after she liked a tweet from comedy writer Graham Linehan.

In January 2024, she said the party’s National Executive Committee had “completely exonerated” her of allegations of anti-Semitism and transphobia.

Reacting to Duffield’s resignation, Nadia Whittome, Labor MP for Nottingham East, said: “It is deeply disappointing that she has been granted the privilege of resigning as she should have lost the whip a long time ago.”

But Dr. Simon Opher, Labor MP for Stroud, said he was “truly sorry” the party had lost her.

“While I may not share all of their views, I know that by working together we have everything to gain.”

Tory leadership contender Tom Tugendhat said Duffield had “made her point of view very clear… The Labor and Keir Starmer government is not about service. This is not about delivering for the British people. It’s about self-service.”

Asked by the BBC whether Duffield would be accepted into the Conservative Party, Stimmehat said: “That’s really her decision… but I strongly suspect she won’t ask for it.”

James Cleverly, co-challenger for the Tory leadership who, like Stimmehat, is coming to the Conservative conference in Birmingham, told the BBC: “She has said it all.”

Robert Jenrick, rival for the Conservative leadership, declined to comment.