𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Rosie Duffield will not be surprised if there is a newsflash in the coming weeks announcing that Sir Keir Starmer’s time as Prime Minister has come to an end. Once a Labour rising star who turned the traditionally true blue seat of Canterbury red for the first time in 2017, she is now a scathing critic of the PM. The 54-year-old says no one she knows thinks Sir Keir will lead the party into the next election, and she suggests his exit could be imminent.

“There are rumours it could be as early as the end of January,” she says. “We know that people are making moves, whether they deny it on television or not.”

She quit the Labour group of MPs in September 2024, blasting the “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” at the heart of a party hit by so-called freebie-gate, the torrent of tales about top figures getting free clothes and tickets to the likes of Taylor Swift. Her unhappiness in the Labour party was no secret. She was among its highest profile champions of single-sex spaces and rights based on biological sex.

After criticising Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill in 2023, she said the response from MPs reminded her of being in an abusive relationship. She described suffering “low-level trauma” at her “political isolation”. Ms Duffield once chaired the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party but the gender controversies led to a situation where, she says, “people that I considered friends were frightened to be seen talking to me”.

She remains deeply disappointed at Sir Keir’s leadership at this time.

“He was perfectly happy to see me being bullied from within the party,” she alleges, adding he “has never stepped up to help, support or defend me or even speak to me about it”.

Would she like to sit down and talk to him about her treatment?

“Not now,” she says. “He’ll be a backbencher very soon.”

Has the PM ever offered to apologise?

“Gosh, no. He doesn’t do that… I don’t think Keir ever thinks he’s done anything wrong.”

She claims she was punished “for believing in sex-based rights and believing in biological reality” – but she does not rule out a return to the Labour group, and is excited at the idea of Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham returning to Parliament.

“I would seriously consider rejoining if Andy Burnham was to find a way of becoming the leader,” she says. “I think we need someone from outside London desperately…

“I think we need someone who’s achieved things and done things. Andy Burnham has.”

Ms Duffield warns her former party against replacing Sir Keir with anyone in his cabinet.

“If somebody from within that tiny circle takes over as leader, I think Labour has got no chance whatsoever in the next election, absolutely none,” she says. “They are going to get wiped out.”

She acknowledges not everyone in the Labour movement would welcome her back with open arms.

“To be honest,” she says, “the people running the party now would probably block me rejoining anyway because they’re still mostly of the opinion that I’m a bigot or whatever for standing up for women’s rights.”

A landmark legal ruling came in April last year when the Supreme Court decided the meaning of the terms “sex”, “man” and “woman” in the Equality Act is “biological”. But though she is confident her beliefs are in line with the majority of the population, she says the battle for single-sex spaces and sex-based rights “hasn’t been won in Parliament” and “hasn’t been won in institutions or organisations or even the NHS”.

The intimidation of people with gender-critical views, she insists, continues within corporations and the public sector “every single day”. She fears people have been denied a chance to excel in politics and the arts because of their beliefs about gender.

“I’ve seen such brilliant women and men who would have been good at politics but were denied the chance because of a belief,” she says. “And we’ve got some incredibly mediocre politicians now who just stick to the safest line and don’t have an opinion on anything…

“Often you can’t break into comedy or writing or even dance if you’ve got a gender critical belief. I think we’ve suffered.”

The Government’s trial of puberty blocking drugs, she argues, is “horrific” and she wants it stopped, warning it will “come back to haunt all of us”.

Ms Duffield is unimpressed by “previously silent Labour women MPs” who have started to Tweet about women’s rights.

She says: “If you’ve shown no sisterhood to people whom you’ve watched being bullied, who are supposed to be your friends and your colleagues… I think those words mean nothing, they just mean you want to keep your seat next time and you realise that the tide has turned and you’re saying what the public want you to say.

“I think people are fed up with politicians doing that. They should have shown more backbone when it was dangerous, I guess.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch won respect among grassroots Conservatives as women and equalities minister, defending the importance of biological sex and arguing “no child is born in the wrong body”. Ms Duffield admits to liking Mrs Badenoch “very much” but this self-described pro-European lefty liberal knocks on the head any notion she might join her party.

“We just get on very well,” she says. “She’s very funny. I don’t think people necessarily realise how funny she is.”

Instead of looking for a new party home, she says she is “perfectly willing to give it a go and stand as an independent”.

“I can take whatever stance my constituents ask me to,” she says.

Labour, she argues, “without question” still has a “women problem”. Talented female MPs, she says, are “completely sidelined” because “they are simply not seen as someone who’ll spout the lines Keir Starmer and his team are putting out”.

“They have got their own thoughts,” she says. “They are good at politics – he’s not – and I think he probably finds those women intimidating.”

Like many MPs who have found themselves at the heart of national controversies, she has to consider her personal safety when out and about. Although she “desperately” misses being able to be spontaneous, there is no tone of self-pity when she talks about her present life.

Ms Duffield describes her position as an MP as privileged and instead focuses on the experiences of “people who have lost their jobs and people who have taken those life-altering drugs”.

She gives no sign of wishing she had not spoken out.

“I don’t regret that at all,” she says. “I’ve met some incredible people and made some brilliant friends.”