Keir Starmer ‘looked at me like I was an alien’ says MP shunned by Labour in trans rights row

Sir Keir Starmer “looked at me like I was an alien” when we met for 17 minutes for the first time in four years in May last year, former Labour MP Rosie Duffield has said.
Duffield also said that she could only re-enter the Labour Party when Starmer is no longer the party’s leader in an interview with today’s Chopper’s Political Podcast on GB News

Duffield was speaking for the first time since Starmer refused to apologise at Prime Minister’s Questions this week for how she was treated by the party when she was hounded out.

Duffield found herself isolated and ostracised in the party in part because of her position supporting women’s rights in the trans debate.

Duffield told GB News’ Political Editor Christopher Hope that after “months and months of negotiation” she had met with Starmer for the first time in four years in May last year just before the general election.

She said: “One of the whips managed to get me in front of him for 17 minutes. And that was after four years of trying…And, he just looked at me like I was an alien.”

She added: “I don’t think he has any concept of this particular issue or what people in the party have been put through over it, actually.”

Duffield said she found “it hard to believe that Keir is so far removed”, adding: “I’m just surprised he didn’t understand how many people felt so strongly and how many different groups were invested.
“He does seem to be almost completely unaware of all of the different sets of people that have been affected by this, like sports and clubs.”
She was re-elected as a Labour MP at July’s election before quitting in September over the freebies which had been accepted by Starmer and members of his top team of ministers.
Duffield said she wanted to see “a clear statement from Keir Starmer… that we could see is definitely not necessarily an apology to women, but an explanation as to why he hasn’t been more clear so far.
“He’s flip flopped around this for the last few years … A lot of the people in the Cabinet now have always seen it as a fringe issue. They wish it would go away. It’s a bit awkward, a bit difficult to talk about.”
Duffield said that she wanted to rejoin the Labour Party – but only when Starmer has quit. “The Tories were always very supportive. Kemi [Badenoch] is a friend of mine. But we’re ideologically very different.
“I got elected as a Labour MP. My values are that of the Labour Party, as was before they turned into sort of an austerity party. And they’ve been a huge letdown to me and lots of other backbenchers.”
Duffield said she would stay on as an independent “for now”, adding: “I would like to be able to go about the Labour Party at some point, but that’s not on the cards under his leadership.”