Canterbury MP Rosie Duffield has resigned the Labour whip, accusing the Prime Minister of “hypocrisy” and pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies.

In a resignation letter, Ms Duffield attacked Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and means-test winter fuel payments and condemned his handling of the outcry over gifts given to him and other senior Labour figures.

She wrote: “Someone with far-above-average wealth choosing to keep the Conservatives’ two-child limit to benefit payments which entrenches children in poverty, while inexplicably accepting expensive personal gifts of designer suits and glasses costing more than most of those people can grasp – this is entirely undeserving of holding the title of Labour Prime Minister.”

Relations between Ms Duffield and the Labour leadership have long been strained, particularly on the issue of transgender rights.

The MP went on to criticise Sir Keir’s management of his party, saying he had “never regularly engaged” with backbench MPs and lacked “basic politics and political instincts”.

She added: “The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale. I am so ashamed of what you and your inner circle have done to tarnish and humiliate our once proud party.”

Her letter said she intended to sit as an Independent MP “guided by my core Labour values”.

One Labour backbencher said they were glad to see the back of Ms Duffield, describing her as “poisonous” and adding: “Yes, they have a long-standing bunker mentality in the leader’s office and need better PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party) engagement, but they’re at least doing something right if they never talk to her.”

First elected in 2017, Ms Duffield’s decision to quit the party follows the suspension of seven other Labour MPs who rebelled on the King’s Speech by voting for a motion calling for the two-child benefit cap to be abolished – and brings the total number of Independent MPs to 14.

Ms Duffield did not vote on either the proposed amendment to the King’s Speech or a recent Conservative motion calling for the restriction of the winter fuel payment to be halted.

In her resignation letter, she also criticised the Prime Minister for promoting people with “no proven political skills and no previous parliamentary experience” and said he had been “elevated immediately to a shadow cabinet position without following the usual path of honing your political skills on the backbenches”.

Sir Keir was made a shadow home office minister in 2015, two months after he was first elected as an MP, and in turn appointed a number of MPs elected in 2024 to junior ministerial positions.

One of those, Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer, is the son of Sir Keir’s first shadow attorney general Lord Falconer, while Liam Conlon, son of Number 10 chief of staff Sue Gray, was made a parliamentary aid to Department for Transport.

Conservative leadership candidates took aim at the Prime Minister over Ms Duffield’s resignation, with former security minister Tom Tugendhat saying the move showed Sir Keir’s Government was “about self-service”, while frontrunner Robert Jenrick said the Government was “already in disarray, crumbling under the weight of their rank hypocrisy”.