Oh no Rosie

[InandOutlander]

I'm so sad to see her go, she was the shining light within the Labour camp.

How marvellous she is. How principled she is. How great at calling out the greedy money-grabbers.

If that’s your genuine opinion, then you should be expecting her to call a by-election, not trying to justify her dodging one and keeping her job that she literally just got campaigning as a Labour candidate, because ‘the rules allow it’. They allow those gifts too.

Again, I fail to see how this is different from the Corbyn people bullying Luciana Berger out of the party and then saying it didn't happen, and if it did she was asking for it.

She hasn't stayed and fought for what she believed in though, has she? She has quit as soon as another 5 years of £93k were in the bag.

Do you genuinely think that didn't factor into her decision?

I had been intending to spoil my ballot as I didn't want to be a single issue voter. However, after a year of reflection on politics I concluded that a) my "single issue" - the impact of gender identity belief positioned as fact - was actually pretty big, impacting freedom of speech as well as vulnerable children/young people and women's rights
b) my local Tory MP was doing a good job in the community

Even though I did not agree with many Tory policies, I voted for my Tory MP. If he had won his seat and subsequently left the party because he found he could no longer support his own leader, laying out his reasoning as logically as Rosie has done, I would have fully accepted this. I would have also accepted that this would be a difficult decision for any MP to make about their own party. The idea of a series of "last straws" makes a lot of sense.

Well done Rosie. FWIW, I would happily have voted for you if I were in your constituency, having seen your contributions on both a national level and some examples of what you have done locally.

“Of course, when Christian Wakeford defected from Conservative to Labour in the last parliament, Rachel Reeves came on the news to sagely tell us that a by-election in these circumstances is not how our democracy works.”

Another interesting point, thanks.

This argument is missing nuance, isn't it?

Accepting massive gifts, when you claim to be the party which represents the minorities and underdogs, does have a moral implication, regardless as to whether it's within the rules or not. Particularly when you called your one of your predecessors out for exactly the same thing, and stood as the 'no sleaze' alternative to the Tories.

Combining that with the financial measures we know they're imposing, whilst simultaneously claiming that the broadest shoulders should take the hit, just shows how unaware and stupid the party leadership is. Rosie is right to step away at this point, IMO. I wish others would do the same and have the courage of their convictions.

It's the rank hypocrisy which is the problem and, essentially, sullies the Labour 'brand'.

Yes.The more I read about Rosie's ordeal and the attacks she has suffered from young men in the party (in no way discouraged by Starmer), and indeed Starmer's enmity-- the more I fear that Stonewall-award-winning Lord Alli has a great deal to do with shaping the Labour party. Could even be the guiding arm behind Starmer's questionable stance on women's rights.

Charles Moore: "One charge against Lord Alli is that he was instrumental in ensuring that many scores of the ‘right’, pliable Labour candidates were selected for winnable seats by seconding to Labour a member of his staff, Matt Faulding, to take charge. According to Michael Crick’s current research on the composition of the new parliament, Mr Faulding seems to have done this with ruthless aplomb."

He gives them stuff. They give him control over which candidates are selected for the party. Not suss at all.

It does sound to me as though Alli is well acquainted with the Denton's Document, a strategy report detailing how to embed GII into law.

Are you, as a Labour voter, happy with the way things have gone so far? Is any of what has happened/been revealed so far what you thought you were voting for? Was any of it on the "Labour ticket?"

There are lots of very unhappy backbenchers, and there have been for a long time; and many of them recently voted against cutting the WFA; some of them protested at conference too.........It is a difficult decision to make. Do I stand down or do I persist when my leader continually acts in ways, and makes decisions, I profoundly disagree with.

But no rank hypocrisy in choosing to resign over people accepting massive gifts while you, yourself have just guaranteed yourself an extremely well-paid job for the next 5 years by supporting that party?

“I have sympathy with her Labour loyalist constituents, but they got what they voted for - Rosie Duffield, MP.“

And, if what they were voting for was a Labour govt, they got that too, and they’ve still got that.

“But what seems to be making some people angry is that she has criticised the PM. If he didn't want to be criticised for accepting freebies, he shouldn't have accepted freebies. And then gone on to announce benefit cuts.”

I suspect that you’re right about this being the reason.

Bearing in mind she was quite vocal about the parts of the party she was utterly dissatisfied with, I'm not entirely sure you can say she was voted in due to supporting the party in its entirety and without question.

We aren't privy to what her constituents have said to her about the party since July. I'd imagine she was guided to an extent by what they've been saying.

I think this is about not liking Rosie, not what's happened. Because I certainly don't recall the same posters being so vehement every other time somebody crossed the floor!

Labour don't think it should trigger a by-election. Why should we? 🤷‍♀️

She did stay and she fought an election campaign even though some were trying to get her de-selected. She had to personally raise money for her campaign leaflets. She wasn't funded by Lord Ali. She stood for what she believed in ( Labour values) and her constituents knew about her Gender realist views.

Apart from the emotional toll of many years of being campaigned against she now finds her leader making decisions she disapproves of - that were not in the manifesto she campaigned on - by enacting cuts to those most in need. I have every sympathy for her situation. The totality of it.

Imo politics is a balance of power & principles.

Rosie is carrying out the balancing act, as an MP she has more power. I can't speak for how principled she is, but without a seat she has no influence. If she uses her power for evil do her constituents have the power of a no confidence vote?

A “lucrative job” - that routinely attracts vicious and vile misogynist online abuse and rape and death threats?

“If we are talking about money-grabbing, that amount of money has to come into consideration particularly if it could be viewed as an unearned gift.“

But it’s worse than that - now it’s not even a job, now it’s “an unearned gift”

This is just getting silly.

I think this is about not liking Rosie, not what's happened. Because I certainly don't recall the same posters being so vehement every other time somebody crossed the floor!

🎯

You might have a point if one MP resigning the whip led to a general election being called. But it doesn’t.

For those Canterbury voters who voted for Rosie because they wanted her as their MP: they’ve still got her as their MP.

For those Canterbury voters who voted for Rosie because they wanted the Labour Party to form a government: the Labour Party is still in government.

For those Canterbury voters who voted for Rosie because they didn’t want a Conservative MP or a Conservative govt: they still don’t have a Conservative MP or govt.

There are still Labour people passionately dedicated to trying to make Labour into the 'good guys' by reframing all the trauma constantly.

Labour didn't win on a popular vote, they didn't win through an electorate enthusiastically embracing them, their leader or their popularity, it was an electorate willing to risk a party they weren't enthusastic about to try and get some change, an escape from a clapped out disliked and heavily tarnished government.

What's that saying about 'always keep a hold of nurse for fear of meeting someone worse'?

I think Duffield has probably now definitively proved that it is impossible to 'change the party from the inside'. They are what they are. Not what they were 20 years ago or more, not 'keeping their powder dry' and sounding vague and nuts because they need to get into power to unleash common sense for Reasons, not 'worth the crap because some of the policies will be better for women'.

They're a shower. They're as insane as most lib left parties. They're as corrupt as Boris and co and as lacking in integrity, morality or actual values. Would they have held covid parties? Yeah, I have no doubt at all in believing they would. Three years of pretending they were the moral high horse is now giving Starmer et al really bad optics.

Incidentally go back and look at the MN threads during the Labour leadership campaign, it's all there. The women candidates were barmy but at least openly and honestly barmy about what they believed and intended in power. Starmer said nothing you could get a grip on. Everyone assumed (lets be honest, mostly because he's a man), that his greater intelligence and shrewd planning and other Good Things was behind him looking like a personality-less, idea-less blob with nothing more than a lot of patronising arrogance towards women, and he Had A Plan.

I'm increasingly convinced that no, nailed it the first time, he's exactly who he showed himself to be on that day. We believe around here in 'when someone shows you who they are, believe them'.

Back in 2020 there was a Private Members' Bill which aimed to force a recall petition - and therefore a possible by-election - when an MP changed allegiance. It wasn't successful, but it was sponsored by a number of 2019 intake Conservative MPs including our old friend Christian Wakeford.

In 2022, when Wakeford decided to join Changed Labour, Rachel Reeves said bluntly that there was no need for a by-election: New Labour MP backed bill that would see defecting MPs face a recall petition and possibly a by-election (nationalworld.com)

South Africa actually does have a law against floor crossing which is even stricter, and kicks MPs out of Parliament if they leave their party. But South Africa elects its MPs on party lists, not as individual candidates in constituencies. And, like a lot of South Africa's high moral tone legislation, it hasn't done anything in practice to make the ANC less corrupt. Arguably it's insulated the leadership from rebellions that might force it to clean up its act.

This. Starmer has no policies, being a technocrat. I notice that the al Fayed investigation was another thing that 'did not cross his desk' when he was Attorney General!

I said before, I don’t mind Rosie. I said that she has been treated appallingly by Labour. I said that her complaints in the letter are basically true.

But she lied in her letter. She said that her constituents voted for her on the basis of her independent-mindedness. That on that basis she can happily continue as an independent MP. But she didn’t give them a chance to vote for her independent mindedness, she stood as a Labour candidate. She has clearly been considering leaving Labour for a long time, she said as much in her letter. But she isn’t willing to put her job on the line to demonstrate her conviction that her constituents voted for her alone and not her as Labour candidate. She lied to avoid doing that. Which means that she was also not willing to risk her job when she was deciding whether to stand for re-election as a Labour candidate or an independent. She wasn’t willing to risk her job to take a stand against how Diane Abbott was treated, but she’s willing to leave the party now citing that as a big issue, confident that her job is secure.

Being elected as a Labour MP, immediately quitting the Labour Party and then claiming that Labour had nothing to do with you getting the job in the first place and your constituents would have voted for you anyway so it’s fine to keep the job for the next five years isn’t ok.

If she wants to dispel the idea that she shelved her principles long enough to get re-elected, then she knows what she can do.

Then she should be confident in winning a by-election. Why is she not willing to risk her job to do so?

This ⬆️

Rosie gave her constituents and the Labour party exactly what she said she would.

She can continue to do so for her constituents and her decision won't impact Labour one bit.

“Look at the Labour manifesto. It's light on policy specifics, but there's a whole chapter on restoring standards to public life.”

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here.

There were plenty of question marks about what Starmer stood for before the election. Not least because his strategy was to avoid clearly committing to anything.

But I think everyone assumed, and took it for granted that was safe to assume, that an end to sleaze and a return to standards in public life would be what a former DPP would stand for.

I’m bemused at some of the melodramatic and hyperbolic language being directed at Rosie in this thread. But then, on here, we’re all familiar with women routinely being held to different standards from men. She’s being accused of having her nose in the trough for merely continuing to serve her constituents.

I’d be very surprised if the Labour leadership wanted to fight a by-election given their current ratings.

But if we are talking about MPs needing to go to by-election if they become independents then we are saying that there must be a by-election every time the whip is withdrawn as that means those MPs are also independents. Which also means no MP would risk voting against the government. At which point we no longer have constituent MPs, we merely have a party leadership imposing their ideas on the whole country.

Of course not