The Labour Party has an “issue with women”, Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield has said, adding that MPs on her side sometimes tried to sabotage her speeches in the House of Commons.
Duffield - a campaign on women's rights - said that Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was nicer to her than Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and felt that the party was "gaslighting" her.
The Canterbury MP was investigated by Labour over a complaint that she had been transphobic for liking a tweet by Graham Linehan, the Father Ted creator who is now a gender-critical campaigner.
Labour only dropped its year-long investigation into Duffield in January.
Rishi Sunak is nicer to me than Sir Keir Starmer, says Labour MP Rosie Duffield, claiming her party has an 'issue with women'
PA
She told today's edition of Chopper's Political Podcast that her career had suffered from the criticism of her and she felt "flat" when she saw newly elected Labour MPs getting jobs directly on the frontbench.
Asked if she felt the part was "gaslighting" her, she said: "It feels like that, it feels like the things I've achieved in Parliament are completely irrelevant to my own party."
Asked if her party had "a woman problem", she said: "My experience is only in the Labour Party.
"And I can't speak for the parties, but I do feel that my party does have an issue with women."
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The MP for Canterbury has repeatedly hit out at Starmer for failing to protect women through Labour's trans-inclusionary policiesPAAt times she felt she had been in an "abusive relationship" with Labour, because the party's delight at her winning the safe Tory seat of Canterbury for Labour from the Conservatives in 2017 had soured.
She said: "It's the psychological aspect of that kind of relationship where you can be loved one minute and showered with kind of praise and compliments and all of the stuff that you get in those kind of relationships and then completely blanked completely ghosted.
"And you're like, 'Oh, what's that about? And what did I do?' And you don't know what you've done and you spend ages trying to work it out.
"So in my case, in 2017, I was all over the posters and all over the great big screens at our conference because I'd won an unwinnable seat and that was really lovely and it was a bit overwhelming and I wasn't really prepared for it.
Rishi SunakPA"Nobody thought I'd get back in 2019. It was seen as just a city woman who happens to be the right place the right time. Now I am not remotely celebrated. It's the exact opposite."
Duffield said that Labour MPs often tried to trip her up verbally in the Commons Chamber, which meant she would try to make eye contact with Tory MPs who supported her to keep going.
She said: "Sometimes friends see me speak and they see that I look very nervous. And it's not really like me to hesitate or stumble on my words, but it's become more a thing I do when I speak in the Chamber.
"What you can't necessarily hear or see when you're watching on television is that there's normally a row behind me of Labour MP chuntering non stop comments about transphobes or whatever, not necessarily directed at me, but they know I can hear it.
Keir Starmer said PA"It's really uncomfortable. And I'm often sort of looking across the chamber to allies and making eye contact just to sort of keep me feeling a bit stronger."
Duffield suggested Starmer was indifferent to the party's treatment of her. "Keir and I last had conversations September 2021 the week before the Labour Party conference," she said.
She got on better with Sunak. She said: "We were voting on the smoking bill a couple of days ago, and I walked through the lobby having a really nice chat with the Prime Minister. He's a very nice man.
"And we were talking about films and television and just children and, you know, ordinary chitchat."
Despite her differences with Labour, Duffield said she could not see herself switching sides to the Conservatives. She said: "I have got some friends on that side, but there are some really basic and fundamental ideological differences, like refugees and like Brexit and I couldn't square that with myself. And also I think I'd be letting down my constituents.”
Rosie Duffield during a previous on GB News
GB NEWS
She added: Rishi is very friendly. I just never see Keir actually."
Duffield insisted that she will carry on as a MP, despite her internal battles with her own party. "All MPs have had that dark night of the soul. I think we'd be lying if we said we hadn't.
"When it gets too much, you do think, 'am I achieving anything? What's this for?' And then you remember that you have helped people in your own constituency and that that's worth it.
"And that I have changed policy as well. And I may not get any credit for it, but I know I've done it. So you know that helps."
A Labour Party spokesman was approached for comment.
Listen to Christopher Hope's interview with Rosie Duffield on Chopper's Political Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the interview at GBNews.com or on YouTube.
