Labour candidate Rosie Duffield quits election campaign after abuse

Labor candidate Rosie Duffield announced she was withdrawing from the election campaign because she felt it was unsafe.

Ms Duffield, who is seeking re-election in her Canterbury constituency, has previously faced death threats and multiple instances of abuse over her stance on sex and gender.

in statement In a post on X, she condemned the “relentless trolling, vitriol and misrepresentations” and said they were “being carried out with new vigor in this election.”

She added that “unfortunately the actions of a few obsessive people have made it impossible for me to attend” and said she would instead hold a “safe” local event, telling The Times earlier this week that she had spent £2,000 on bodyguards during the election campaign.

Duffield says there should be protected places, like domestic violence shelters and prisons, where people born male aren’t allowed, and he opposes people identifying as transgender in order to access those places.

An internet troll who posted “horrifying” messages online threatening to kill Mr Duffield and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was sentenced in June.

Ms Duffield has said in the past that she felt unsupported by the Labour party over her views on transgender issues, and did not attend the 2021 Labour conference after receiving online threats for her safety following the transgender rights row.

Mr Duffield finally met Sir Keir Starmer last month after telling the Leader that no one had spoken to him for two and a half years, but complained that Starmer “did not apologise”.

She appeared to be given the cold shoulder by party leader Sir Keir Starmer at the start of the election campaign after not being invited to events in her county.

A Labour spokesman said: “It is vital to our democracy that parliamentary candidates are able to campaign freely.”

“We totally condemn any intimidation tactics against candidates of any political party.”

Earlier this week a man was charged over an incident in which Reform Party leader Nigel Farage was covered in milkshake, leading to warnings that abusing candidates is an “affront to democracy”.

The full list of candidates running in Canterbury is below: