A LABOUR MP has quit the party over the Winter Fuel Payment cut and the freebies scandal which has engulfed the party over recent weeks.
Rosie Duffield, MP for Canterbury, blamed Keir Starmer’s “cruel and unecessary policies”, condemning the Labour leader for accepting gifts worth more than £100,000 from Lord Alli.
The Times reported that she is expected to write to Keir Starmer on Saturday to inform him of her decision to resign the whip “with immediate effect”.
The resignation means Duffield (below) has become the fastest MP to quit from a party after a General Election in modern political history.
“The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale,” Duffield said.
“I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”
Reflecting on the Government’s decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and axe the Winter Fuel Payment for all but the poorest pensioners, Duffield said: “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 these people can grasp — this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister.”
She added: “Forcing a vote [on the Winter Fuel Payment] to make many older people iller and colder while you and your favourite colleagues enjoy free family trips to events most people would have to save hard for — why are you not showing even the slightest bit of embarrassment?”
The SNP have demanded an investigation into what the party claimed had become Starmer’s “version of the MP’s expenses scandal”.
Yet Starmer is also set to face internal criticism, as Duffield wrote: “As Prime Minister, your managerial style 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 14 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. 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?”
She added that there were others in the party – including “household names” – who felt the same as her and are “really angry and frustrated”.
Duffield will now sit as an independent MP.
Responding to the resignation, SNP MP Graham Leadbitter (above) said: "Starmer's first few months in Downing Street are going from bad to worse - no wonder the Labour Government is already tanking in the polls.
"The public thinks Keir Starmer is more interested in new suits and Taylor Swift tickets than scrapping the two-child cap or keeping pensioners warm this winter. This dramatic resignation shows even his own MPs agree.
"In the face of Westminster sleaze and Labour austerity, only the Scottish National Party will continue to put Scotland's interests first."
