Rosie Duffield has turn out to be the primary Labour MP to resign from the social gathering because it got here to energy in July.
The 53-year-old MP, who represents Canterbury in Kent, despatched a scathing resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer on Saturday.
Here’s what she mentioned in full:
Pricey Sir Keir,
Normally letters like this start, “It is with a heavy heart…” Mine has been more and more heavy and conflicted and has longed for a level of aid.
I can not keep a Labour MP below your administration of the social gathering, and this letter is my discover that I want to resign the Labour Social gathering whip with instant impact.
Though many “last straws” have led to my choice, my cause for leaving now could be the programme of insurance policies you appear decided to stay to, nonetheless unpopular they’re with the citizens and your personal MPs.
You repeat usually that you’ll make the “tough decisions” and that the nation is “all in this together”. However these selections don’t immediately have an effect on any certainly one of us in Parliament. They’re merciless and pointless, and have an effect on lots of of hundreds of our poorest, most weak constituents.
This isn’t what I used to be elected to do. It’s not even sensible politics, and it definitely shouldn’t be “the politics of service”.
I didn’t vote so that you can lead our social gathering for causes I will not describe intimately right here. However, as somebody elevated instantly to a shadow cupboard place with out following the standard path of honing your political expertise on the backbenches, you had little or no earlier political footprint. It was due to this fact unclear what your political passions, drive or route could be because the chief of the Labour Social gathering, a big motion of individuals united by a need for social justice and help for these most in want.
You additionally made the selection to not communicate up as soon as in regards to the Labour Social gathering’s issues with antisemitism throughout your time within the shadow cupboard, leaving that to backbenchers, together with new MPs corresponding to me.
Because you took workplace as Chief of the Opposition you might have used varied heavy-handed administration techniques however have by no means proven what most skilled backbenchers would recognise as true or inspiring management.
You will have by no means frequently engaged with your personal backbench MPs, a lot of whom have been in Parliament far longer than you, and a few of whom served within the earlier Labour authorities.
You will have chosen neither to hunt our particular person political views, nor find out about our constituency experiences, nor our particular or collective areas of political information. We
clearly don’t have anything you deem to be of worth.
Your promotion of these with no confirmed political expertise and no earlier parliamentary expertise however who occur to be associated to these near you, and even one another, is frankly embarrassing.
Specifically, the current therapy of Diane Abbott, now Mom of the Home, was deeply shameful and led to feedback from voters throughout the political spectrum. A lady of her political stature and place in historical past is deserving of respect and help, no matter political variations.
As Prime Minister, your managerial and technocratic method, and lack of fundamental politics and political instincts, have come crashing down on us as a celebration after we labored so arduous, promised a lot, and waited a protracted fourteen years to be mandated by the British public to return to energy.
Because the change of presidency in July, the revelations of hypocrisy have been staggering and more and more outrageous. I can not put into phrases how offended I and my colleagues are at your complete lack of expertise about how you might have made us all seem.
How dare you are taking our longed-for victory, the citizens’s sacred and valuable belief, and throw it again of their particular person faces and the faces of devoted and hardworking Labour MPs?! The sleaze, nepotism and obvious avarice are off the size. I’m so ashamed of what you and your internal circle have carried out to tarnish and humiliate our as soon as proud social gathering.
Somebody with far-above-average wealth selecting to maintain the Conservatives’ two-child restrict to learn funds which entrenches kids in poverty, whereas inexplicably accepting costly private items of designer fits and glasses costing greater than most of these individuals can grasp – that is completely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister. Forcing a vote to make many older individuals iller and colder when you and your favorite colleagues get pleasure from free household journeys to occasions most individuals must save arduous for – why are you not displaying even the slightest little bit of embarrassment or regret?
I now don’t have any confidence in your dedication to ship the so-called “change” you promised in the course of the Basic Election marketing campaign and the adjustments we’ve been striving for as a political social gathering for over a decade.
My values are these of a democratic socialist Labour Social gathering and I’ve been elected thrice to behave on these values on behalf of my constituents. Canterbury made historical past when its voters elected their first girl, and solely non-Conservative, MP because the seat was created within the thirteenth century.
My constituents elected an independent-minded MP who vowed to place constituency earlier than social gathering, and to maintain tackling the problems that almost all have an effect on us right here – Brexit fallout, funding for our universities, our desperately struggling East Kent NHS, dire housing state of affairs, repeated sewage air pollution and defending our very important inexperienced areas.
I’m assured that I can proceed to take action as an impartial MP guided by my core Labour values.
Sadly, the Labour Social gathering has by no means proven any curiosity in my fantastic constituency within the seven years that I’ve been in Parliament. However I’m pleased with my neighborhood and can proceed to serve them to the very best of my capacity.
My constituents care deeply about social points corresponding to little one poverty and serving to those that can not assist themselves. I’ll proceed to uphold these values as I pledged to do after I first stood earlier than them for election in 2017.
As somebody who joined a commerce union in my first job, at seventeen, Labour has at all times been my pure political dwelling. I used to be elected as a single mum, a former instructing assistant in receipt of tax credit. The Labour Social gathering was shaped to talk for these of us with no voice, and I stood for election partly as a result of I noticed selections in regards to the lives of these like me being made in Westminster by solely essentially the most privileged few. Proper now, I can not look my constituents within the eye and inform them that something has modified. I hope to have the ability to return to the social gathering sooner or later, when it once more resembles the social gathering I really like, placing the wants of the numerous earlier than the greed of the few.
Yours sincerely,
Rosie Duffield MP
