There’s a popular meme, taken from an old headline on the satirical news site Clickhole: “Heartbreaking: the worst person you know has made a very important point.”
People tend to post a picture of the poor stock model they’re using to illustrate the title or track when someone known to be generally at odds with their values accidentally agrees with them on one issue or another. Did Donald Trump accidentally say something progressive? Does Jeremy Clarkson believe in climate change? Piers Morgan revealed as Swiftie? Heartbreaking.
I saw a lot of people using this meme on social media on the Saturday evening when Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield resigned from the Labor Party. In a letter explaining his departure and its accompanying profile TimesDuffield blasted the government for the dismal start to its first 10 weeks in office, noting its acceptance of gifts from donors as well as the party’s stance on winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit limit. He even blasted them for the treatment of Diane Abbott in the post-Corbyn version of the party.
To be clear, I’m not saying Labour’s first 10 weeks were that bad. In terms of scandals, most of the accusations leveled against them were relatively thin sauce, especially when compared to the laundry list of indignities foisted on this nation by their predecessors. From my perspective, there are no glasses or football boxes expensive enough to put Keir Starmer alongside the likes of Boris Johnson.
But perception is reality, and the reality is that if enough people are affected by a “scandal,” then it will eventually lose the on-air quotes. Labor’s outlook has been abysmal over the last few weeks and they will need to get their house in order further if they don’t want to be attacked by the general public who are used to prime ministers just hanging around. for a month and a half.
But Duffield is perhaps the worst person associated with the party to make this point (except for the ghost of John Stonehouse, a minister under Harold Wilson, whose Wikipedia page includes a section titled “Faking his own death”).
I lived in Canterbury for a few years. It’s a strange city; part Tory stronghold and heartland of English Protestantism, part student town where I invented a drink called “Joseph Conrad’s Revenge” (it was basically just tequila and Capri Sun). I have great love for him; I did my undergrad and master’s degree here, got my first teaching job here, and met many of the friends I still have today.
You can probably imagine my joy in 2017 when the city finally elected its first non-Conservative MP. I wasn’t living there at the time – at that point I was banned from all student pubs and had to flee to Liverpool – but I had heard a lot about Duffield. People were really excited about a Labor MP (a woman no less) shaking things up.
And boy oh boy, did he shake things up. In a few short years, Duffield has made a name for herself as a major provocateur, mostly for her stance on transgender issues. Although she describes herself as “not anti-trans,” she has refused to recognize the identity of trans people, described herself as “gender critical,” referred to trans women as “biological men with male bodies,” and has spoken at conferences. trans-exclusionary LGB Alliance.
Back in the days when likes could be seen on Twitter/X, he was investigated by his former party for liking a tweet that said transgender people were “mostly heterosexuals posing as the opposite sex and gay.” She was also investigated for liking a tweet by Graham Linehan, which some thought disparaged the persecution of trans people during the Holocaust (the investigation was later dropped). He has caused Labor a lot of headaches and I wouldn’t be surprised if many in the party were happy to see him back.
It’s also worth noting that Duffield had previously abstained from votes to cut the winter fuel payment and end the two-child allowance limit; both issues he states in his letter contributed to his departure. Apparently these are issues he strongly believes in and are worth resigning for, but they don’t actually vote for them.
During his time at the party, Duffield made a lot of noise and ruffled a lot of feathers, but he didn’t actually seem to be doing much else. Like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema in the US (elected by Democratic votes, but switched to independent after it became clear that their views were in fact not aligned with the party at all), there is a real question about what Duffield is doing in the Labor Party. first.
In his letter, he calls the party his “natural political home” and praises its ethos of speaking “on behalf of those who have no voice,” but if he truly believes in that fundamental principle, he hasn’t done much to show it. during his tenure. In my opinion, he chose to belittle and undermine the voiceless by making disgusting statements about trans people. I guess there’s nothing stopping him from identifying with the party he wants – we can explain the irony of this later – but it’s still a bit confusing.
He says he ran straight there Times with his sad story, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he learned at some point in the near future that his “natural political home” was actually on the other side of the aisle; perhaps after the Conservatives come together, if that happens. There will come a day. Either way, he won’t clog the Labor ranks with his attention-seeking and harsh stances.
This is best for both him and the Labor Party; It’s a shame that everyone has to spend so much of their time trying to understand something the rest of us already know.