Politics

Jess Phillips announces Labour leadership bid with ferocious attack on catastrophic Corbyn


She said that voters no longer trust Labour, which suffered its worst electoral result since 1935. Miss Phillips, who has never held a frontbench nor a senior parliamentary role since being elected MP Birmingham Yardley in 2015, claimed she is the straight-talking candidate who can win back working-class support. She said: “Against a Prime Minister who blusters and lies, Labour needs a leader who will speak truth – to both the party and the country.”

Miss Phillips is the third MP to declare they will enter the leadership race, following shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and shadow treasury minister Clive Lewis.

“People didn’t trust us,” she said.

“I travelled around the country during the general election campaign and what I was hearing from our amazing activists was that people don’t trust us anymore.

“And that’s what I was hearing from voters.

“They don’t think we are honest and they don’t trust us to be the people who get to make the decisions.”

Miss Phillips said only “when we are clear and straightforward” will voters again back Labour again.

“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 added.

READ MORE: Jess Phillips grilled over hostile language amid leadership bid

The former Army major has called for the party to make a “clean break” with the Corbyn era.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey, a close ally of Mr Corbyn, and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy are also considering challenges.

Bookmaker Coral gave Miss Phillips odds of 16-1 but said that Sir Keir remains the odds-on favourite at 4-6, with Ms Long-Bailey second at 7-2.



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