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Jess Phillips warmly received at Limmud Festival
But the Birmingham MP does not declare her hand in the Labour leadership race just yet
December 23, 2019 18:45
But the Birmingham MP does not declare her hand in the Labour leadership race just yet
December 23, 2019 18:45The Birmingham MP Jess Phillips, widely tipped as a contender to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, was warmly received at the Limmud Festival on Monday when she spoke, ten days after the party’s catastrophic election defeat.
With her easy manner and ready humour, she quickly charmed an audience of several hundred that filled the event’s largest room to hear her and colleague Wes Streeting, who retained his Ilford North seat.
Both, who are members of Labour Friends of Israel, were heard in silence, apart from the odd burst of applause that came from sympathisers.
But Limmud members who hoped she might use the occasion to announce her leadership bid were kept guessing.
When Mr Streeting said he was “going to ask her to stand,” she laughed, “I might”. And when an audience member pressed her further, she replied they would “just have to wait and see. Be patient.”
The toughest question they faced was how could they retain credibility with the Jewish community having been willing to remain in the party under Jeremy Corbyn.
“If Wes or I stood down do you think the Labour movement as it currently exists would have elected people who would have carried on speaking up?” Ms Phillips countered.
While they could have walked away, “doing nothing changes nothing. We have to be in the room to have those fights, whether it’s the Jewish community, whether it’s the people who have faced sexual harassment in our movement, whether it’s the people who have faced bullying.
“We have got to stay in the room and keep on fighting. Because as soon as you give up, they will just replace you with somebody who will not fight.”
But it would be a test of the Labour party over the next five or ten years to encourage “a better representation of Jewish voices”.
Labour’s failure to get to grips with antisemitism had contributed to voters’ lack of trust in its ability to get things done, she acknowledged.
One of the worst consequences was that it had lost the moral high ground in fighting racism, she said.
Labour, she said, “cannot and will not survive if it genuinely thinks that some people are there to be protected and some people there to be thrown under the bus.”
Taking a similar line, Mr Streeting said he could understand the anger of some people at the decision of MPs like them to remain.
But he argued, “What would happen if we just walked out and left? The outcome of the election would be no different. But the prospect of saving the Labour party and getting it back to being a mainstream Labour party would be diminished.”
He said he had never believed “on the basis of all the evidence available” that Labour could have won an election under Mr Corbyn.
Mr Streeting said that candidates for leader and deputy leader of the party should be questioned on how they had acted on the issue of antisemitism.
“If you are someone who said nothing while the Jewish Labour Movement was being attacked,” he said, “you are probably not fit to be leader of the Labour party”.
