Rosie Duffield Slams Starmer’s Hypocrisy as She Resigns from Labour

Rosie Duffield’s Scathing Resignation: Labour’s Hypocrisy Exposed

Ah, at last! A glimmer of integrity in the murky swamp of Labour politics. Out of the 404 Parliamentary Labour MPs left standing, it seems we’ve stumbled upon one with a backbone – a rare find indeed in these days of spineless sycophancy.

Rosie Duffield, the MP for Canterbury, has decided to jump ship from the good vessel Labour, finding its new course under Captain Starmer too nauseating to stomach. In a scathing resignation letter that reads like a charge sheet against the party’s leadership, Duffield has laid bare the rot at the heart of Labour’s brave new world.

The “staggering hypocrisy” she refers to is a scathing indictment of Starmer’s leadership. Here’s a man who, while preaching austerity for the public, eagerly accepts gifts worth tens of thousands. It’s a display of double standards so blatant, it should leave even the most seasoned politician squirming.

Starmer’s decision to scrap the winter fuel payment and maintain the two-child benefit cap while swanning about in designer suits gifted by Labour peers is a slap in the face to every working-class voter Labour once claimed to represent. It’s the kind of “let them eat cake” attitude that would make Marie Antoinette proud.

But the hypocrisy doesn’t end there. Duffield rightly points out the nepotism infesting Labour’s ranks. We’re witnessing the birth of a new aristocracy within the party, with freshly minted MPs catapulted into shadow cabinet roles without so much as a day’s experience on the backbenches. It seems in Starmer’s Labour, it’s not what you know, but who you know – or more accurately, who your parents know.

The fact that Duffield is the fastest MP to resign after a general election in modern political history speaks volumes. It tells us that the rot has set in quickly and deeply under Starmer’s leadership. The Labour Party, once the proud voice of the working class, has become a hollow shell, its soul sold for a handful of designer suits and a taste of power.

Duffield’s decision to sit as an independent MP “guided by my core Labour values” is a damning indictment of how far the party has strayed from its roots. When an MP feels she can better represent Labour values outside the party than within it, you know something has gone terribly wrong.

Neither has it taken the people long to find their collective disapproval of Prime Minister Starmer. His plummeting popularity is a spectacle of political free-fall that would make even the most seasoned Westminster observers gawp in disbelief. Keir Starmer’s approval rating lacks any precedent for a new government, tumbling at a pace that makes his predecessors look like models of enduring popularity.

To reach such depths of public disdain, it took Thatcher – the despicable – a full 18 months. Tony Blair, the warmongering silver-tongued architect of New Labour, managed to keep the public onside for an impressive 69 months before hitting similar lows. Even David Cameron, hardly a darling of the masses, clung to favourable ratings for two years before the tide turned.

Starmer, in a breathtaking display of political ineptitude, has managed to achieve this feat in less than three months. It’s a nosedive so steep and swift it would make a Japanese kamikaze jealous. His net approval now wallows at -27, roughly on par with Rishi Sunak when he threw in the towel and called an election. This represents a staggering fall of 38 points since July – a drop so precipitous it’s a wonder he hasn’t got the bends.

This isn’t just a honeymoon period cut short; it’s a political marriage annulled before the ink on the register has dried. Starmer has managed to squander any public goodwill he had with the public. It’s as if he’s taken the Partiy faithull’s hopes, dreams, and expectations, bundled them up neatly, and promptly tossed them into the nearest incinerator.

As we watch this spectacle unfold, one can’t help but wonder: how many more Labour MPs are silently seething, their consciences wrestling with their career ambitions? How many more will find the courage to follow Duffield’s lead and speak truth to power?

In the grand theatre of British politics, Rosie Duffield’s resignation is but a small act of rebellion. She joins the magnificent seven, those principled former parliamentary Labour MPs suspended by Starmer for having the audacity to vote against him and wanting the two-child benefit cap scrapping. These are cracks in the facade, a chink in Labour’s armour that exposes the hollowness within. It’s a reminder that integrity still exists in politics, even if it’s become as rare as hen’s teeth.

As for Starmer and his merry band of champagne socialists, they’d do well to heed this warning shot. The working-class voters they’ve taken for granted for so long might just decide that if this is what Labour has become, they’re better off looking elsewhere, let’s hope so…

Paul Knaggs