A victory for reason: let us cheer it

How one MP's struggle for objective truth overcame the militants

One of the features of our age is the shortage of courage that exists among our political class. I have written previously about the noticeable decline in the number of MPs possessing what you might call a real moral fibre. Far too many seem too willing these days to walk on eggshells in an effort to avoid causing a row or putting themselves in the firing line. Unfashionable opinions are suppressed and inconvenient truths ignored in the quest to avoid controversy. Sometimes this has the disturbing effect of ensuring that views that are common currency throughout the land do not get the oxygen they merit within our national debate. In no small part, it’s a phenomenon that contributed to Brexit (a fact that, I fear, much of the political class has still not grasped).

Every now and then, however, an MP sticks their head above the parapet in the full knowledge that many will attempt to blow it off. In such moments, one’s faith in representative democracy is momentarily restored. To my mind, any elected representative, regardless of political stripe, who is prepared to pursue a cause that places them at odds with the political and cultural elites – particularly in these days of cancel culture, when it might mean the end of their career – is worthy of respect. 

Photo: UK parliament

Rosie Duffield, the Labour MP for Canterbury, is such a person. She is, in fact, as brave as they come. Elected in 2017, she seemed every bit the modern Labour MP – bright, telegenic, liberal, a Remainer – and went about her business diligently and without fanfare.

And then, in August 2020, she did ‘the thing’. Something that many among her own tribe (which is my tribe, too, as it happens) considered truly unforgiveable. Something that ensured she would be condemned as some kind of raging ‘bigot’ and ostracised from ‘polite’ society.