In praise of Rosie Duffield
The Labour MP has stood by her commitment to women’s rights despite endless vile abuse.
Rosie Duffield is a rarity among politicians: the Labour MP for Canterbury has principles. She repeatedly puts her neck on the line in defence of women’s sex-based rights, even when doing so puts her at odds with the party’s hierarchy. And she continues to speak up for what she believes in despite being on the receiving end of torrents of vile online abuse. Now Duffield is ‘considering her future’ in the Labour Party over the ‘obsessive harassment’ she receives.
When Duffield was first elected in 2017, Labour’s bigwigs and hangers-on fawned over the county’s only Labour MP and the first person to turn Canterbury red in over a century. When she spoke in parliament about her experiences of domestic abuse, colleagues were reduced to tears. Her successful re-election in 2019 came after rallies attended by then shadow cabinet minister Emily Thornberry, Danish darling of the BBC Sandi Toksvig, and journalist Owen Jones. Duffield could, at this point, have kept her head down and found herself feted and promoted. She chose not to.