The shameful smearing of Rosie Duffield

In recent years, Rosie Duffield, a Labour MP, has frequently found herself in conflict with the party's trans-supportive leadership due to her staunch advocacy for the preservation of women's gender-based rights.

On numerous occasions, she has defended the scientific fact of gender and cautioned against the potential harm brought about by permitting men who identify as women to enter sex-segregated areas such as female restrooms and penitentiaries. Despite this, each and every time she vocalized these thoughts, Labour leaders have criticized her.

It appears that Labour's trans-rights group is causing trouble for Duffield once more. News broke over the weekend that Duffield is currently under investigation by Labour's legal and governance unit due to accusations of anti-Semitism. Unlike Jeremy Corbyn, the previous party leader who chanted controversial phrases at rallies and labeled Hamas as "friends," Duffield's supposed wrongdoing was merely showing support for a satirical post by Graham Linehan, the creator of Father Ted and a writer who is critical of gender ideology.

On the 22nd of March in 2023, Linehan made a sarcastic remark saying, 'Oh yes, the Nazis. They were notorious for being discriminatory against straight white men with blonde hair.' This was in response to an interview on Sky News that featured comedian and activist Eddie Izzard, where he shared that he believed identifying as transgender was similar to being a superhero. However, he also mentioned that if he lived in Nazi Germany, he would have been killed for it.

The statement made by Izzard was not historically accurate. The modern understanding of being transgender would not have been known 80 years ago. Although some people who were killed during the Nazi regime have been identified as transgender in recent times, the reality is that they were targeted because of their homosexuality or bisexuality.

However, those who wanted to attack Duffield didn't let a lack of historical knowledge stop them. Ash Sarkar from Novara Media quickly pointed out that Duffield had "liked" a tweet from Linehan. Sarkar shared this information with her more than 400,000 followers and stated that Duffield, who is a member of the Labour Party, approving of a tweet that contains Holocaust revisionism is unacceptable. It is a known fact that the Nazis sent trans people and gay people to concentration camps where they later died. Therefore, it is shameful that a Labour MP would support the denial of this reality.

Shortly after Sarkar accused Duffield of "Holocaust revisionism" and "denial," Chris Elmore, a Labour whip, asked Duffield to remove her "like" from Linehan's tweet because it was considered anti-Semitic. Although Duffield complied, she maintained that the tweet was not anti-Semitic. Duffield is now under investigation by her party.

This investigation seems like an unfair hunt to blame someone. Duffield is not someone who hates Jewish people, just like how Izzard is not a man. She holds an important position as the vice-chair of a parliamentary group that opposes anti-Semitism, which shows her dedication to supporting the Jewish community in Britain. Even when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the party, she continued to stand in solidarity with British Jews, which was not a popular view. In fact, members of her local Canterbury Labour Party even tried to criticize her for attending a protest against anti-Semitism and speaking at the Jewish Labour Movement conference. Although the motion was eventually dropped, their intentions were clear.

Labour should feel proud to have Duffield as one of their politicians. She embarked on an apprenticeship at the age of 16 after leaving school and later worked as a teaching assistant. Duffield faced challenges in her personal life, including being a single mother and a survivor of domestic violence, but still managed to reach her current position after fighting hard. In 2017, she secured Labour's only seat in Kent and became the first Labour member to represent Canterbury in nearly a hundred years.

No matter what one's beliefs are on Duffield's political views, it is evident that she is an individual of high moral principles. She has a genuine concern for the welfare of the community she represents and is resolute in her convictions. However, her stance on the fact that men cannot transition into women and her support for single-sex areas have resulted in her being frequently harassed and unnerved by many associated with the Labour Party. In an even more ridiculous turn of events, she is being falsely accused of being an anti-Semite despite her steadfast support for the Jewish community.

The level of cynicism exhibited by those who are accusing her is beyond belief. What is even more infuriating is that those who follow Corbyn's beliefs and ideologies are the ones labeling her with such accusations. Whilst Corbyn was leading the party, his supporters were minimizing the extent of anti-Semitism in Labour. Yet, now they have turned on Duffield and are claiming that she is the root of the problem.

The Labour party should stop their dishonest investigation. It's unfair to accuse Rosie Duffield of being against Jewish people, especially when there is already a lot of hatred towards them. If the leadership doesn't have the bravery to defend her and put an end to these false accusations, they will lose any credibility they had in supporting women.

Jo Bartosch is a media professional advocating for the freedom and equality of females.

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