A prominent Labour MP has quit the left-wing party amid the growing gifts scandal surrounding Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and top members of his government, declaring that the “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale.”
Canterbury Member of Parliament Rosie Duffield announced Saturday evening that she will leave Labour to become an independent lawmaker, accusing the prime minister of failing to uphold left-wing principles, using “heavy-handed management tactics” to quell dissent among the backbench, and displaying a lack of “political instincts” in the handling of the so-called freebies scandal.
Not even three months in office, Starmer’s government has seen widespread pushback, including over allegations of “two-tier” policing during the anti-mass migration protests and riots, for cutting winter fuel subsidies to pensioners amid energy and economic struggles, and most recently, for accepting hundreds of thousands in “gifts” from Labour donors in the form of designer clothes, glasses, tickets for concerts and football matches, among others.
Prime Minister Starmer has admitted taking over £100,000 in “freebies”, including over £30,000 from millionaire media mogul and Labour Party life peer Lord Alli, who was granted special access to Downing Street despite not having a role in the new government. Starmer and other members of his government have attempted to brush off the budding scandal while claiming that to personal donations were all above board.
However, in her resignation letter, provided to The Times, Duffield said that the “revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous,” adding: “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.”
“How dare you take our longed-for victory, the electorate’s sacred and precious trust, and throw it back in their individual faces and the faces of dedicated and hardworking Labour MPs?! The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale,” she declared.
“I now have no confidence in your commitment to deliver the so-called ‘change’ you promised during the General Election campaign and the changes we have been striving for as a political party for over a decade,” the MP said.
Duffield, who has previously clashed with Labour leadership over issues such as the transgender encroachment on female rights, said that she is “ashamed” of Starmer and his inner circle, saying that accepting “expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp” was contrary to what she believes should be the principles of the left-wing Labour Party.
The Canterbury MP continued: “As Prime Minister, your managerial and technocratic approach, and lack of basic politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a party after we worked so hard, promised so much, and waited a long fourteen years to be mandated by the British public to return to power. Since the change of government in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and increasingly outrageous.”
Demonstrating the lack of political instincts from Starmer, she noted that he leapfrogged from his post as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over more experienced politicians within the party to the top ranks and ultimately to become leader in relatively short order.
Meanwhile, she accused the PM of elevating people “who happen to be related to those close to you, or even each other” despite having “no proven political skills,” which she described as “frankly embarrassing.”
The lack of political awareness within the government, Duffield argued, manifested in Starmer refusing to show “even the slightest bit of embarrassment or remorse” about accepting lavish personal donations, while simultaneously cutting winter fuel aid to pensioners and refusing to lift the Tory two-child credit limit.
“You repeat often that you will make the ‘tough decisions’ and that the country is ‘all in this together’. But those decisions do not directly affect any one of us in Parliament,” she wrote. “They are cruel and unnecessary, and affect hundreds of thousands of our poorest, most vulnerable constituents.”
