The former Labour MP Rosie Duffield has said Keir Starmer has “a problem with women” and that the government is “more interested in greed and power” than making changes to the country. In a broadside at Starmer’s leadership, Duffield told the BBC she was Labour “in my heart and soul” but said the scandal over senior party figures’ acceptance of donations and gifts including clothes was indefensible given the party was keeping the two-child benefit cap and had cut the winter fuel allowance for all but the poorest pensioners. Duffield had previously abstained on votes to cut the winter fuel payment and on an amendment to end the two-child benefit cap.
Speaking a day after quitting the party to sit as an independent, Duffield said of Starmer: “Most of us refer to the men that surround him, the young men, as ‘the lads’ and it’s very clear that the lads are in charge. “They have now got their Downing Street passes. They are the same lads who were briefing against me in the papers and other prominent female MPs and I was really hoping for better, but it wasn’t to be.” The chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, said he was not surprised that Duffield had quit in less than three months after being re-elected, saying she had clashed multiple times with the party leadership. “I think you can see she has been disillusioned with the party leader, maybe the party more generally, for quite a long time. I don’t think this is something that just developed in the last few months,” he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, adding: “I’m disappointed to see her go. I like Rosie, but ultimately I’m not surprised at the decision that she has made.” McFadden denied the government was being run by “lads” and said: “I think I’m a bit too old to be a lad … Some of the stuff in the letter I just don’t accept. “I see ministers turning up to work every day and what’s on their mind is how to stabilise the economy and get it growing again, how to turn around the NHS, how to get more houses built, how to improve rights at work for people, how to get more opportunity into schools. That’s what the ministers around that cabinet table are focused on. They believe in public service.” Duffield has also been a high-profile gender-critical voice in the party which has put her at odds with trans rights activists. She has described receiving threats over her stance and receiving little support from the party leadership. But Duffield cited the donations row primarily as her reason for quitting. “We all had our faith in Keir Starmer and a Labour government, and I feel that voters and activists and MPs are being completely laughed at and completely taken for granted,” she said. “It is so profoundly disappointing to me as a Labour voter and an activist … to see this is what we have become.” Referencing the controversial donations to Starmer from Lord Alli, Duffield wrote in her resignation letter published on Sunday: “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.” She said Starmer “never regularly engaged” with backbench MPs and lacked “basic politics and political instincts”. She also criticised the promotion of new MPs with “no proven political skills and no previous parliamentary experience” and said Starmer himself had been “elevated immediately to a shadow cabinet position without following the usual path of honing your political skills on the backbenches”.