Author JK Rowling has defended Kent's only Labour MP after leaked audio appeared to show a colleague briefing against her.

In the short clip, released by political website Guido Fawkes, Keir Starmer's spin doctor Matthew Doyle is heard saying Rosie Duffield should spent more time in her constituency of Canterbury and less "hanging out" with the Harry Potter author.

Rowling, who like Duffield is an outspoken advocate for women's rights, said: "Rosie Duffield, an ex-assistant teacher, single mother and survivor of domestic abuse, won Labour a seat they thought was unwinnable.

"Post-Corbyn, she was returned to parliament with an increased majority. This is how Labour repays her."

Ms Duffield also responded to the leaked recording, which has been viewed more than 2.2 million times, by saying: "This is rumbling on. Couple of inaccurate comments from this chap (unsure how he thinks he knows so much about my constituency as no Labour leader has been there since I became an MP?).

"Also, no, I haven't been in to see Keir Starmer 'a number of times', only once - in September 2021."

It comes in the wake of comments by the Canterbury MP in which she described the "trauma" caused by her "political isolation" within the Labour Party.

In an article written for website UnHerd, the 51-year-old said she will struggle to convince her constituents the party is not sexist.

"When I come home at night, I feel low-level trauma at my political isolation," Ms Duffield wrote.

"I am not going to join the Conservatives, or the Lib Dems or the Greens, but this party doesn’t always feel like home.

"In 2019, it was hard enough trying to convince my constituents that Labour wasn't antisemitic.

"In the next election, when they inevitably ask whether Labour is sexist, I'm not sure I'll be able to do the same."

'Respect and tolerance are the values that we must have in all those debates...'

Last week Ms Duffield spoke in opposition to Scotland's controversial Gender Reform Bill in the House of Commons, arguing the legislation would infringe on women's rights.

But she says two of her Labour colleagues "traded sympathy for aggression by shouting down women in the chamber".

Recounting the incident in her article, Ms Duffield wrote: "I was defending the need to protect vulnerable women in single-sex spaces."

Responding to Ms Duffield's comments, leader Keir Starmer said: “I’m very concerned that all of our discussions in the Labour party and in politics are discussions that we have with respect and with tolerance.

“And they’re the principles and the values that I want to see in our Labour party and that I insist on in our Labour party, whether it’s Rosie Duffield or anybody else.

“There will be differences of opinion, of course there will, but respect and tolerance are the values that we must have in all those debates.”