JK Rowling has clashed with Labour MP Nadia Whittome over Rosie Duffield’s decision to resign the Labour whip with “immediate effect”.
Duffield, 53, penned a blistering resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer accusing the Prime Minister of being embroiled in a “sleaze” scandal and enacting “cruel policies”.
Rowling, a longstanding ally of Duffield and fellow women’s rights activist, took to social media to blast Whittome after the Nottingham East MP criticised Duffield.
Whittome, who differs with Duffield on issues of gender, said: “No matter your views on her stated reasons for quitting, Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society.
She added: “She should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago.”
Weighing in on the row, Rowling wrote: “Rosie Duffield was one of the few female Labour politicians with the guts to stand up for vulnerable women and girls, while self-satisfied numbskulls like you fought to give away their rights and spaces. TL;DR Keep her name out of your mouth.”
The Harry Potter author, who once donated £1million to the Labour Party, refused to vote for Starmer on July 4 and instead supported an independent candidate.
Duffield, who in April told GB News that Rishi Sunak was “nicer” to her than the now-Prime Minister, was long expected to quit Labour.
Rumours in Westminster were swirling for some time about a potential defection to the Tories.
However, the former teaching assistant instead opted to sit in the House of Commons as an independent MP.
In her letter to Starmer, Duffield said: “The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale.
“I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”
Taking aim at the Prime Minister over his decision to retain the two-child benefit cap and axe Winter Fuel Payments, Duffield wrote: “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?”
Attacking Starmer for so-called hypocrisy, Duffield later wrote: “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?”
Duffield appeared to hint disaffection from former Labour colleagues looms for Starmer, claiming “household names” are “really angry and really frustrated”.
She added: “I don’t know if anyone else will leave. I think most people feel they have got to stay and fight inside the party and I did that to the best of my ability for as long as I could … but this is the end of the road for me for now.”
The ex-Labour MP, who retained her seat at the third-time of asking with a majority of 8,653, denied her decision to sit as an independent had anything to do with her ongoing gender row.
She told The Sunday Times: “With my [gender critical] views, all I wanted was for those views to be taken seriously and discussed and I think as a movement the Labour Party has shifted and we are talking about those things now.
“I and others put it on the agenda by basically being very loud about women’s rights and I am glad it is now a mainstream discussion, but that’s not why I am leaving the Labour Party. The Labour Party has left me.”
