Duffield voted for the UK remaining within the EU in the 2016 UK EU membership referendum. In the indicative votes on 27 March 2019, she voted for a customs union with the EU, a referendum on a Brexit withdrawal agreement, and abstained on single market membership.

In October 2019, Duffield succeeded Jess Phillips as Chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party.

Duffield has two sons from a past relationship. During a debate on the Domestic Abuse Bill on 2 October 2019, using parliamentary privilege, she spoke of suffering domestic abuse from her fiancé in late 2017.

On her election, she was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Dawn Butler, the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities. On 13 June 2018, Duffield was one of six MPs to resign from the shadow cabinet in order to vote in favour of remaining in the single market by joining the European Economic Area, as the party had instructed its MPs to abstain. In parliament, she has sat on the Women and Equalities Committee, and sits on the Work and Pensions Select Committee since June 2018.

In September 2018, Duffield attended a march protesting at Labour’s stance on antisemitism and said that MPs could strike if the party did not endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. She was criticised by some local party members for her attendance. In July 2019, the chair of her constituency Labour Party said her language was “incredibly reckless” after she agreed with a quote from the Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement that Labour “probably is” institutionally anti-Semitic.

Duffield was elected to parliament in the 2017 general election with a majority of 187, defeating the incumbent Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Julian Brazier. Brazier had been its MP since 1987 and the constituency had been represented by a Conservative since its creation in 1918.

In July 2017, she appeared on RT, a television network funded by the Russian government. Duffield apologised to the LGBT+ community for her appearance.

In 2015, Duffield stood in the St Stephen’s ward of Canterbury City Council but both seats were won by the Conservatives. She was chair of Canterbury Labour Party and has campaigned on issues including animal rights and environmental protection.

Rosemary Clare Duffield (born 1 July 1971) is a British Labour Party politician. She has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Canterbury since the general election in June 2017. She held the seat in 2019 with an increased majority.

Duffield was born in 1971 in Norwich, Norfolk, England and later moved to South East London. She left school at the age of 16 and completed an administration apprenticeship at Guy’s Hospital. She then attended a further education college. She moved to Canterbury in 1998 and worked as a teaching assistant, before becoming briefly a political satire writer.