Tom Gordon
ONE of Jeremy Corbyn’s long-term critics has launched a bid to replace him as Labour leader, warning the party is in “big trouble” if it cannot reconnect with working class voters.
Jess Phillips, the outspoken Remain-supporting backbench MP for Birmingham Yardley, said now was not the time to “play it safe” and the party needed a “different kind of leader”.
Unless Labour changed in a “fundamental way”, it would suffer more defeats on the scale of last month’s general election, when the party recorded its worst result since 1935.
She pointedly announced her candidacy in a social media video in which she visited the Welsh constituency of Delyn, which Labour lost to the Tories for the first time since 1987.
On Saturday she will meet former Labour voters in Bury North, part of Labour’s shattered ‘red wall’ in the north of England, which also turned blue on December 12.
Ms Phillips, 38, an MP since 2015, becomes the third declared leadership contender with shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and shadow treasury minister Clive Lewis.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer is expected to declare his candidacy in the coming days.
A YouGov poll of Labour members this week found Sir Keir was the clear favourite among activists, followed by shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey, dubbed the ‘continuity Corbyn’ candidate, and Ms Phillips third.
In a statement, Ms Phillips warned voters had lost trust in Labour and stressed the need for the Prime Minister to be challenged with “passion, heart and precision”.
A critic of the current leadership’s “woeful response” to anti-Semitism in the party’s ranks and of Mr Corbyn’s ambiguity on Brexit, she said: “We have got to be brave and bold and bring people with us, not try and look all ways.
“Trying to please everyone usually means we have pleased no one. Now is not the time to be meek.
“Boris Johnson needs to be challenged, with passion, heart and precision. We can beat him.
“We need to speak to people’s hearts, and people need to believe we really mean it when we do.
“Now is not the time to play it safe. What I’ve heard so far in this debate is totally inadequate to the scale of the problem. Voters have changed.
“We need to recognise that politics has changed in a fundamental way by electing a different kind of leader.
“More of the same will lead to more of the same result.”
The MP, who worked with victims of domestic abuse for Women’s Aid before being elected, said only “when we are clear and straightforward” will voters again back labour.
She went on: “We’re a party named after the working class who has lost huge parts of its working class base. Unless we address that, we are in big trouble.”
She was backed by former MP Melanie Onn, who lost her Grimsby seat last month, and said Ms Phillips was “in a very good position to reach out” to disaffected former Labour voters.
Also considering runs at the leadership are Wigan MP Lisa Nandy and Barnsley Central MP Dan Jarvis, who is also the mayor of Sheffield City Region.
After Labour’s ruling national executive committee meets to discuss the process on Monday, the race is expected to get under way on Tuesday, with the result known in late March.
Former deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, who stepped down before the election, yesterday said the “first task” of Mr Corbyn’s successor was to explain the party’s inability to win an election.
The party has not won since 2005 under Tony Blair.
He said shadow cabinet members ought to face “particular pressure” over the party’s last manifesto, which voters regarded as too costly and ambitious to be credible.
However he said it was too early to give his backing to any candidate.
He told BBC Breakfast: “For whoever wants to lead the Labour Party, their first task is to explain to 500,000 members of the party why Labour lost and why Labour hasn’t won for a decade.”
He added: “Those members of the shadow cabinet that are running for leadership and deputy leadership of the party... have got a particular pressure on them, as they do have to explain whether they think that particular manifesto was the right one or not.”
Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon, shadow education Angela Rayner and Edinburgh South MP Ian Murray are expected to run for the deputy’s post, which will also be decided by a vote of party members.
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