A Labour MP who broke genuine lockdown rules to meet her married lover has claimed she has been forced to pull out of the party conference because of threats to her safety that seem entirely imaginary.

Rosie Duffield told The Times that she had received online threats from “militant transgender activists”.

But where readers could have expected to see evidence to support her claim, all we got was this: “‘LGBT+ Labour now seem to hate my guts and I feared they’d have a massive go at me at conference,’ Duffield said.”

Ah! So there were no actual threats that she would be harmed if she attended conference at all, then?

“‘The people who threaten me I don’t think are actually likely to harm me.'”

Which people are these? We haven’t seen any evidence of any threats at all. And if they aren’t likely to harm her, why is she making such a fuss?

“‘They just say it often and very loudly.'”

Yes? Then The Times should have been able to show us evidence of this behaviour. And it didn’t.

In fact, This Writer has checked this story as it appears in 10 different newspapers, and none of them were able to show a single abusive tweet that Duffield had received, to support her claim.

And I’m not the only one.

Duffield tried to claim that this nonexistent abuse is a product of “misogyny” by “straight white men”.

She said, according to The Times: “It looks like, feels like, and smells like misogyny.”

Then how come the rest of us can’t see it, feel it, or get a whiff of it?

And if straight white men were responsible for the abuse, why had Duffield already blamed LGBT+ activists within the Labour Party?

Oh yes. That seems logical.

LGBT+ Labour itself has denied any involvement in abuse of the MP. According to the Huffington Post, a spokesperson said: “We have made clear our political disagreements with Rosie on policy affecting trans people, but political disagreement should never result in abuse or physical threats.

“LGBT+ Labour has never conducted itself in this way and would never encourage anyone else to. It is utterly unacceptable.

“Women in politics are subject to appalling levels of abuse and we are clear it has no place in our party or society.”

The HuffPost piece also falsely reported that former Labour MP Luciana Berger was given police protection at a previous party conference after months of anti-Semitic abuse. In fact, she was advised to have a police escort to and from the conference – and the only people who were ever found to have given her anti-Semitic abuse were far-right activists who had nothing to do with the Labour Party at all.

Nevertheless, Berger tried to blame then-leader Jeremy Corbyn for the anti-Semites who weren’t in the Labour Party, saying he was responsible for an influx of anti-Semites into the party that hadn’t actually happened. Indeed, anti-Semitism in the Labour Party fell under his leadership.

But considering Berger’s precedent, this seems a perfectly reasonable comment:

In fact, the similarity with Berger’s fakery is prominent:

Of course, Ms Duffield, who is apparently afraid of phantom misogynists accosting her within an event that will be, undoubtedly, patrolled very thoroughly by security guards, had absolutely no problem with breaking lockdown rules and avoiding the police in order to have an affair:

https://twitter.com/SaraCo130813/status/1439645852461584385

It’s interesting that the same people who supported Berger are popping up to support Duffield, showing stunning ignorance of their own hypocrisy. Jess Phillips, for example.

Any normal Labour leader would have reasonably expected to see evidence of abuse before commenting on the story – but not Keir Starmer:

Well, he couldn’t could he? If he had requested evidence, he would have been accused of hypocrisy because he has never shown any interest in seeing evidence to support anti-Semitism accusations.

It is, by now, a classic attack tactic: fabricate offensive behaviour, blame somebody you want to vilify, and get a story published by the papers. Remember Angela Eagle?

It is unsurprising that Duffield is being supported by people like Phillips who bought into Berger’s fakery in order to target innocent fellow party members; she has a shameful history of it herself.

The Labour MP for Canterbury marched in the ‘lynch’ mob with Ruth Smeeth and others to have Marc Wadsworth ejected from the Labour Party in the kangaroo court that was his hearing before the party’s National Constitutional Committee.

She campaigned for Chris Williamson to get the same treatment from his kangaroo court (NCC) hearing.

And she was caught trying to blame her own victims for abusing her in a classic DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) trick, which This Writer called out in a previous article:

She has given an interview in The Times in which she claims that she is the victim of misogynistic abuse and death threats over her opinions about anti-Semitism, Brexit and – particularly – transphobia.

Metro give[s] an example that is pertinent to Duffield’s case:

“Let’s say an influential person is accused of transphobia. They issue a response in which they deny that they are transphobic – ‘I love trans people! I have many trans friends!’ – then attack their critics – ‘people saying I’m transphobic are just cruel, hateful people who want to cause division’. Finally, they Reverse Victim and Offender: ‘I’m receiving so much online abuse because I’m a woman and we live in a sexist society’.

“Now, as a critic, you’re stuck. If you continue to call that person out, you’re ‘cruel, hateful and want to cause division’. You’re being sexist. You’re piling on the online abuse.”

Isn’t that exactly what Duffield is trying to do?

Sadly the right-wing media have been all over this like a rash – and in their usual, casual disregard for fact-checking, none of them have actually bothered to seek corroboration of the claims they have blithely repeated.

And I can’t wait to see the creaking attempts to shoe-horn me into the role of abuser as a result of this article!

But unless and until Duffield can actually demonstrate evidence of LGBT+ Labour members and/or male members of the party threatening harm to her if she attends the party conference, I’ll stick to my evidenced opinion that Duffield is a liar.

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/

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