Don't Vote Labour (Part 12)

Rosie Duffield: A Woman Scorned (Pt II)

The LGB event attended by Duffield also provided a meme. Our good friend David Lammy, the Harvard halfwit, said that the people at the now well-publicised event were "dinosaurs". “There are some dinosaurs on the right,” he said, and added that “those dinosaurs exist in our own party” and their aim was to “hoard rights”. That is why, three years later, all the 'TERFs' or 'gender-critical' people on Twitter, Ms Duffield included, have a green dinosaur emoji on their Twitter profile. They are proud to be so called-dinosaurs, and the gaffe-prone Tottenham MP had once again scored an own goal.

In a nutshell, the LGB alliance is representing lesbian, gay or bisexual people who are concerned about the trans movement encroaching on their own identity and rights. They see sex and gender as the same thing (it is), and do not recognise there being multiple genders other than male and female. 'Trans-excluding radical feminists' (TERFs) have the same concerns from a feminist point of view. There are worries young gay men are being encouraged to be 'trans' and get unnecessary medical procedures. Instead of parents, psychiatrists and teachers saying 'yes, you're gay' to confused and impressionable individuals,  they are saying 'you must really be a woman'. The same applies to lesbians, who are being misdiagnosed as 'really being a man'. We all know that gays and lesbians can have rather more feminine or masculine characteristics respectively, but it doesn't mean they are a different sex. Lives are being ruined by such an attitude, which is becoming increasingly prevalent in the health and education sectors.

There are also concerns some men or women - especially men - are using the increasingly liberalised concept of 'transgenderism' to get closer to the opposite sex, to fulfil whatever sinister motives they might have. This of course has safety implications, as well as being quite insulting. There have been cases where lesbians have been accused of being 'transphobic' if they refuse to sleep with 'trans women' professing to be lesbians. There is also the tendency of some trans activists to make misogynistic and homophobic remarks, and to openly mock women as they enter single sex spaces (often posting videos on social media to 'trigger' their opponents). These are all things that groups such as the LGB Alliance opposes.

At the event, Duffield did not hold back on criticising Labour:

We’re OK to talk about everyone else’s rights, but we’re not supposed to talk about women, and we’re not supposed to talk about our bodies without quantifying it or justifying it... So we’re not allowed to just speak about things that really only do affect women... I can't shut up and I can't sort of be quiet. This idea that women’s rights are - we have to justify talking about them - is just completely ridiculous and I’m afraid my party is an absolute embarrassment at the moment.

She said several times that colleagues in Labour had been "chucking her on the railway tracks" over the issue and that her existence in the party had been "incredibly lonely". One might question why she stayed in Labour after this episode. She was probably holding out so that her party would not be completely surrendered to the trans lobby. This was similar to how a few Brexit supporters stayed with Labour, to not give remainers the run of the house. Loyalty also plays a part, of course. The more cynically-minded may suggest Duffield wanted to remain an MP, and realised this would only be done through the Labour Party. This interpretation could also apply to her 2024 election campaign.

In January 2023, Duffield again criticised Labour in an article for Unherd. She invoked the experiences of abuse which she had shared in Parliament:

Trust me when I say I don’t take[say] this lightly: but what I feel now, after six years of being cold-shouldered by the Labour Party, conjures memories of how I felt in that abusive relationship. When I come home at night, I feel low-level trauma at my political isolation.

The article was written after a debate in the Commons on single-sex spaces (after the Scottish Government had tried to change the GRA to allow self-ID). Male Labour MPs had been remonstrating with female MPs speaking in defence of such spaces. This included Ben Bradshaw and the far-leftist Lloyd Russell Moyle, who went over and stared menacingly at Miriam Cates. In the piece, there are various clues that Duffield considered herself sidelined, not just the 'cold shouldered' comment, but an attack on Corbynites not campaigning for her in 2017. Also there is this remark:

I’m just the only one who feels I have nothing to lose by speaking out. After all, there’s no front-bench job offer for the only Labour MP in my county... Sitting on our front bench is an MP who was voted in as a Conservative. Not sitting on the front bench, however, is a single MP who believes that biological sex can’t be erased at the stroke of a pen.

More controversy surrounded Duffield in 2021 when she liked a Tweet by a gay rapper stating trans people were “colonising gay culture” and were “mostly heterosexuals cosplaying as the opposite sex and as gay”. Another such incident was in November 2023 when she liked a post by Graham Linehan. Eddie (or is it Suzie?) Izzard Tweeted out: “I’m a trans superhero — but if I’d lived in Nazi Germany I’d have been murdered for it”. This was typical self-aggrandisement from the gender-bending comic, who had just embarked on yet another doomed quest to be a Labour candidate. The previous year he'd also been seen and photographed entering a woman's toilet at Sheffield Labour Party event, putting him at the centre of the trans debate. Linehan reposted the 'superhero' post with the comment: “Ah, yes, the Nazis, famously bigoted against straight white men with blonde hair”. 

It's worth remembering that, like Izzard, Linehan is a comedian and makes these things called jokes. Father Jack ended up dressed in an SS uniform in one episode of Linehan's famous sitcom, but it doesn't mean the scriptwriter or anyone who laughed is a Nazi sympathiser. His response to Izzard doesn't completely work because the Nazis would clearly have disapproved of transvestites (or 'transgenderism', had it existed then). Having blonde hair and white skin would not have saved them. Nevertheless the comment is relatively amusing and not in the slightest anti-Semitic. This is an approach the cancellation mob took, knowing that an allegation of anti-Semitism can be so damaging in the current Labour Party. The official complaint to the NEC also included the more obvious charge of 'transphobia'. Of course, Duffield had her very staunch opposition of (alleged) anti-Semites to prove she was not one, and the NEC found her innocent in January 2024.

Later that year (December 5th) it was reported that Duffield was not on the 'approved candidate' list to be reselected. This means a candidate has not been approved or endorsed by the leadership before the decision goes to the local CLP. It did seem that Labour had indeed 'chucked her on the railway tracks'. By the time the General Election was called, as I've covered, circumstances ensured she stayed as the candidate. One gets the impression it was a reluctant decision for the leader's office. She was not invited to Starmer's election launch on May 23rd, despite it being in Kent where she was the only MP. Reportedly, Duffield only found out about the event on Twitter like the rest of us. She also claims Starmer had come to Kent several times, but never told her. Meanwhile, the new Tory defector for Dover, Natalie Elphicke, had been embraced and paraded about earlier in the year. Labour claims that no MPs were invited to the launch (except Starmer and Rayner) because it was focussed on new candidates.

I believe the snub was deliberate - if not it was certainly poor team management. It shows not only the acrimony towards Duffield, but also a continued allegiance to the trans activists, despite Labour's attempts to mislead the public on the issue. Indeed on 30th April (following the Cass Review findings) Starmer backtracked on his previous pro-trans stance and said of Duffield, "biologically of course, she is right". Despite this, he has made no public apology to her - and she claims, no private apology either. Starmer had finally said in 2023 that a woman was an 'adult human female', and after the election he U-turned on the self-ID policy he had pushed since 2021.

When Duffield cancelled an elections hustings appearance after security concerns, a Labour peer, Lord Cashman, commented: “Frit. Or lazy”. He was suspended from Labour for this.

For her poor treatment, Duffield paid Starmer back with interest. On September 28th, not long after she was returned to the Commons, Duffield quit the party. She did so with the most brutal resignation letter seen since Suella Braverman wrote to Sunak...

Duffield's detractors insist she just wanted to make sure she was re-elected first, and had long been planning this. The Starmtroopers and Corbynistas were temporarily united in their condemnation and derision. The MP herself made the resignation primarily about the two child cap and the removal of the winter fuel allowance. These were presented as the embodiment of Starmer's oppressive, out-of-touch and scandal-riven regime. The gifts and donations affair was referenced, contrasting Labour's programme of austerity with the riches and luxuries of its front benchers:

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?

As we can see in the above, Starmer received ruthless personal criticism. This is unusual in such letters, which normally try to be conciliatory and respectful:

...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...

You have used various heavy-handed management tactics but have never shown what most experienced backbenchers would recognise as true or inspiring leadership...

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... is frankly embarrassing.

She also accuses Starmer of sitting by during the anti-Semitism row, and not speaking out about it. That's taking what is a common attack line by Starmer and using it against him. Balancing this out, she also extends a branch to the Corbynites by condemning Sir Keir's treatment of Diane Abbott (moving to deselect her after she made a foolish remark about the Holocaust). Every line is a powerful quote - the piece is even a bit too long and indulgent, in need of some paring down (and that's coming from me!). It needs to be seen in its entirety.  

Was this a cynical move? Did Duffield merely want to get elected first, and then use the austerity policies as a pretext to quit? It’s possible. This was put to her during an interview with Unherd and she denied it. However, she did not vote on the two child cap, included in the King’s Speech, because she had Covid (some say conveniently). With the winter fuel allowance, she abstained. By her own account she didn’t want to lose the whip by voting against the government. People point to these facts to suggest she wasn’t actually that bothered about these policies.

In an interview with Andrew Neil recorded before the election, she was not too critical of Starmer and even expressed some understanding of his position. She welcomed him ‘changing his mind’ (in Neil’s words) on the trans issue. She also said she’d received support over her security concerns, and that Starmer had met with her a few weeks preceding the election (before the launch snub). Perhaps this was just a veneer, not wanting to dunk on her own side during an election. If so, she has a good poker face. She may have been acting tactically, but it is perfectly plausible she was maintaining party discipline until the austerity and gifts scandal pushed her over the edge.

In the daily flow of bad news and policies for Labour, Duffield's strident resignation has been rather forgotten. Since it happened we have had: the Chagos Islands given away; a plan for 100 Labour staff members to campaign for Kamala Harris; a Labour MP accused of attacking somebody in the street; a possible cover-up over the Southport killings and a budget mugging farmers with inheritance tax.

The Duffield affair should not be forgotten. One of Labour's own has been driven away because she believes in biological fact and her party has not backed her up. Her departure reflects how Labour have not only alienated social conservatives over the trans issue, but also the left over their financially conservative austerity. Their credentials with both sides are up in smoke. Duffield has nailed Starmer more effectively than most Conservatives, expressing a rapid and widespread anger at his flawed government. As William Congreve wrote in 'The Mourning Bride':

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned

Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned

Article written by Ed Pond, 2024, all rights reserved