Jess Phillips (politician)

Early life and career

The youngest of four children, Phillips is the daughter of Stewart Trainor, a teacher, and Jean Trainor, who was Deputy Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation and Chair of South Birmingham Mental Health Trust. They were politically active: "Growing up with my father was like growing up with Jeremy Corbyn" she told Rachel Cooke of The Observer in March 2016. Her childhood ambition was to become Prime Minister.

Phillips studied Economic and Social History/Social Policy at the University of Leeds between 2000 and 2003. She marched against the Iraq War, as did her parents. Between 2011 and 2013, she studied for a postgraduate diploma in Public Sector Management at the University of Birmingham.

From 2010, Phillips worked for Women's Aid. She had a post as a business development manager at the domestic sexual abuse charity, responsible for refuges from sexual abuse in Sandwell in the West Midlands. Before her work for the charity, she worked for her parents at their company Healthlinks Event Management Services Limited.

Phillips left the Labour Party during the years of Tony Blair's leadership, rejoining after the 2010 general election. Her period at Women's Aid made Phillips "utterly pragmatic... I learned that my principles don't matter as much as [people's] lives." In the 2012 local elections, she was elected as a Labour councillor for Longbridge ward, taking the seat from the Conservatives. She was then appointed as the victims champion at Birmingham City Council, lobbying police and criminal justice organisations on behalf of victims. She also served on the West Midlands Police and Crime Panel.

2015 election and first months in the Commons

Phillips was selected to contest Birmingham Yardley in June 2013, a constituency at the time represented by John Hemming of the Liberal Democrats who at the 2010 election held the seat with a 3,002 majority. For the 2015 general election, Labour required a swing of 3.7% to take the seat, and after a swing of 11.7% Phillips achieved a majority of 6,595 or 16% of votes cast. She made her maiden speech on 28 May 2015, highlighting the issue of homelessness. In the 2015 Labour leadership election, Phillips nominated Yvette Cooper for leader and Tom Watson for deputy leader.

Phillips verbally clashed with fellow MP Diane Abbott on 14 September over the gender composition of Jeremy Corbyn's first shadow cabinet. After she asked Corbyn why he had failed to appoint a woman to shadow the great offices of state, Abbott accused her of being "sanctimonious" and pointed out that Phillips was "not the only feminist in the PLP (Parliamentary Labour party)". Corbyn did not intervene. Owen Bennett wrote in The Huffington Post that Phillips recounted: "'I roundly told her to fuck off.' When asked what Ms Abbott did after that suggestion, Ms Phillips replied: 'She fucked off.'"

Phillips was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Lucy Powell, then Shadow Education Secretary, in September 2015.

In October 2015, Phillips caused controversy by mocking Philip Davies MP for trying to get a debate about International Men's Day. Phillips said "You’ll have to excuse me for laughing. As the only woman on this committee, it seems like every day to me is International Men’s Day." Following Phillips' objections she was subjected to rape threats on social media. Phillips said she did not attend the debate in November to avoid her clash with Davies becoming the dominant issue.

Phillips told Owen Jones in December 2015 that she had told Corbyn and his staff "to their faces: 'The day that ... you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won't knife you in the back, I'll knife you in the front'", if it looked as though he was damaging Labour's chances of winning the next general election. Responding to criticism about her use of language, Phillips said on Twitter: "I am no more going to actually knife Jeremy Corbyn than I am actually a breath of fresh air, or a pain in the arse".

Since January 2016

In January 2016, Phillips said on Question Time that events akin to the mass sexual assaults in Cologne happened every week on Birmingham's Broad Street. She insisted any "patriarchal culture" must be challenged, but the UK should not "rest on its laurels" where two women are murdered every week. In response to criticism she told the Birmingham Mail: "This isn’t something that refugees have brought into our country. This is something that’s always existed". Journalist Joan Smith criticised Phillips' remarks.

Phillips criticised the gender makeup of Labour's shadow cabinet reshuffle in January 2016. In June 2016, she stepped down from her role as PPS to Lucy Powell, the Shadow Education Secretary, following the resignation of Powell and other shadow cabinet members over the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

After several thousand threatening or demeaning tweets, including rape threats, were sent to Phillips within 36 hours during May 2016, which Twitter said did not break its rules, Phillips in The Daily Telegraph accused the social media company of "colluding with my abusers". Her response to the murder in June 2016 of her friend, the Labour MP Jo Cox, was that it "makes me want to fight harder". She wrote of them both receiving online abuse and threats: "Usually, we both shrugged it off, never feeling any real fear. Conversations usually ended with a defiant, 'we won't let the bastards grind us down' and a cuddle". In August 2016, she told The World at One on Radio 4 that a "panic room" was being installed in her constituency office which now has an alarm system. At her home, improved locks have been fitted.

She became chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) following a vote in September 2016, defeating her predecessor Dawn Butler, considered a Corbyn ally.

On 23 February 2017, Phillips' first book, Everywoman, One Woman's Truth About Speaking the Truth, was published by Penguin Books.

Ahead of the 2017 general election, Phillips criticised the calling of the general election. She was re-selected as Labour's parliamentary candidate for Birmingham Yardley, facing competition from her predecessor, former Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming. Phillips subsequently won 57.1% of the vote, increasing her majority to 16,574, with the Conservatives coming in second place and the Lib Dems in third.

Following the general election, Phillips said the Women's PLP would co-ordinate to promote policies beneficial to women in the context of a hung parliament. In July 2017 she called for a review into elections for chairs of House of Commons select committees due to the relatively low level of female candidates.

Personal life

The former Jessica Trainor is married to Tom Phillips; the couple have two sons.