Duffield has penned the best denunciation of Starmer you’ll ever read

Starmer can't even see his own sin – like most fanatical prudes
Starmer can’t even see his own sin – like most fanatical prudes - REUTERS

Honestly, you think this Government can’t fall any further, then it drops a few more feet. Three months after winning a landslide, two days after his triumphant conference, Keir Starmer is hit by an MP quitting the whip. It’s Rosie Duffield, and with a resignation letter for the ages.

The party will insist she was always an odd one; out of step on trans issues, occasionally accused of bigotry. But she isn’t your classic hard-Left troublemaker. Elected in 2017 in true-blue Canterbury, probably thanks to a Remainer realignment, Duffield is prominent and much liked: a soft-Left backbencher who people have heard of.

She served briefly as an opposition whip. She has taken on the extremists and been harassed for her reward. Duffield’s letter thus gives the insight of someone who wanted the new New Labour project to work and is thoroughly disappointed.

The problems, it seems, begin with Starmer himself. I’ve never read a better indictment of the man.

He was, she charges, swiftly over-promoted in opposition. Weirdly silent on Corbyn’s flaws; it was always unclear what motivated him. Since becoming leader and PM he has used “heavy-handed management tactics” and refused to engage with backbenchers.

This part stands out: “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, or even each other, is frankly embarrassing.” The Government that boasts it is uniquely representative of the working-class often looks like an incestuous clique.

Its double-standards extend to attacking the Tories on sleaze and then bringing Labour into disrepute via donorgate. Cutting the winter fuel payment and refusing to abolish the two child benefits cap while “accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most… people can grasp.”

I’ve struggled to decide exactly why what Keir did is so offensive – no cash was stolen, no taxpayers’ money misappropriated – but Duffield, being of the Left herself, instinctively puts her finger on it. Starmer is a Puritan hypocrite. Worse, as is typical of fanatical prudes, he can’t even see his own sin.

“Why,” asks Duffield, “are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment or remorse?” Because he believes he is pure, Rosie. Hell is stuffed with people who would insist they did nothing wrong, which is half the reason they ended up there.

I predicted in a column this time last week that Starmer will face growing scrutiny from the Left. Duffield is just the first to strike; the situation will get worse post-Budget. Duffield has a personal beef, sure – because she feels she’s been fighting the good fight against crazies for years, without thanks from the leadership, let alone promotion. Starmer just watched, probably reluctant to upset the woke mob.

But her letter also contains an embryonic philosophical argument. Left-wingers will increasingly argue that Starmer is committed to Tory austerity, that his government might occasionally do socialist things – such as Rayner’s pro-union legislation – but is at heart wedded to Treasury orthodoxy and to balancing the books on the backs of the poor. Talk of smashing glass ceilings from Rachel Reeves etc is simply a bromide.

This is an old war within Labour; it goes back to the 1930s and 40s. While the Tories and Reform camp around on the margins, I suspect it’ll be the party’s Left, soft or hard, that delivers the most effective opposition to this sinking administration.