The Labour party would “look bad” if it elected another man leader in a race in which four of the five candidates are women, leadership hopeful Jess Phillips has said.
Speaking on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday, Ms Phillips said that sometimes men need to “pass the mic” if they “truly believe” in gender equality.
She added: “The Labour party has a blind spot in this regard, it always has. It’s genuinely frustrating because… it does a disservice to the Labour party’s record on women but I think it would look bad.
“I think it will be embarrassing and what’s more, it gives absolute grist to the mill and ammunition to our other side.”
The Birmingham Yardley MP, who is polling behind front runners Rebecca Long-Bailey and Keir Starmer in the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn , said the party struggled at the last election because people didn’t trust them.
Ms Phillips said: “What you heard on the doorstep, what you heard wherever you were in the country, was that basically people didn’t trust the Labour party on a number of things but the fundamental thing was trust, was leadership, they didn’t trust our positions on the big issues of the day, in lots of cases they didn’t know what they were and also they just didn’t trust that we could deliver the things that we were saying.”
Previously an advocate for a second Brexit referendum, Ms Phillips said campaigning to join the EU would not be her political priority.
She said: “I don’t think this is a conversation that is even open for debate at the moment.
“We are leaving the European Union and I don’t even think amongst people who voted Remain in the original referendum, that there is any appetite to carry on having a constitutional conversation when we should be talking about the things that people actually talk about.
“I’m not an uber Remainer, I don’t feel the need to represent myself as an uber Remainer, I am a politician who will do what I think is right.”
