Rosie Duffield doesn’t deserve this

The witch hunt that Rosie Duffield has endured for the last few years is nothing new for the #BeKind crew. They don’t want kindness, they want compliance.

A lot has been written over the past few days about Rosie Duffield. Most of what I have seen can only be described as incredulity that she is being punished for liking this post on TwiX:

The Times explains how in March of this year Rosie Duffield liked this post and was immediately accused of Holocaust revisionism.

I liked Glinner’s post too.

I liked the way it so succinctly points to the lie behind a crass attempt to score victim points by a man who passed rather more successfully as a Nazi in Valkyrie than he does as a woman in 2023.

It’s bad enough that Rosie was laid into back in March because of a bad faith take from an activist with an agenda, but it’s shameful that she’s being punished for it still, a full 8 months later. Appeals to Starmer, we are told, have “fallen on deaf ears”.

Rosie Duffield is vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on antisemitism. The idea that she is an anti-Semite is preposterous.

More from The Times:

Lord Austin of Dudley, a former Labour MP who resigned from the party over antisemitism while Jeremy Corbyn was leader in 2019, described the investigation into Duffield as “madness”.

He said: “There are very few MPs who have fought antisemitism as strongly and as consistently as Rosie Duffield. She is one of the very few MPs who turned up and showed her support for the ‘enough is enough’ demonstration against antisemitism in 2018 and has consistently opposed antisemitism ever since.”

What we are seeing is the application of gold-plated double standards.

We’re in a world where statements that everyone knew to be true until yesterday must now be proven and peer reviewed, whilst nonsensical ideas must be taken seriously until evidence is presented that they have no basis in fact.

Where the worst possible interpretation is applied to the words and behaviours of those holding majority views, whilst every accommodation is made for those holding illiberal and counterfactual positions.

When Alan Baker claimed he didn’t really mean it when he said “If you see a TERF, punch them in the fucking face” he was believed for no good reason. But when Rosie Duffield agreed with a clearly ironic comment relating to gender ideology, then that comment was taken at face value despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Double standards.

Demands were made for Rosie to apologise for statements like “only women have a cervix” but she is right not to. Not only is there nothing to apologise for, but any apology would probably be used as more evidence against her anyway.

Meanwhile, another Labour MP has a long history of repeatedly causing offence. In June 2020 Lloyd Russell-Moyle apologised to JK Rowling “after accusing her of using her own sexual assault as “justification” for discriminating against trans people”. Russell-Moyle apologised to Miriam Cates in January of this year for the tone of voice he used to accuse her of making “transphobic comments”, but not for the accusation itself. He heckled and shouted at Rosie Duffield too, and as a result was instructed to not contact her. No apology necessary in this case. No punishment by the party either.

Industrial strength double standards.

The capture of institutions by activists right up to and including regulatory bodies and political parties is undermining our way of life – as intended. They’re not interested in diversity, equality or inclusion, they’re interested in control.

The British people do not deserve to be treated like this.

Women of integrity like Rosie Duffield, Miriam Cates and JK Rowling do not deserve to be treated like this.

The law, whether Labour Party policy or UK legislation, must be applied reasonably and fairly. Double standards are not compatible with justice.