Jess Phillips and Labour’s ongoing women problem

Last week, Intelligence Squared put on a debate called ‘Is Labour unelectable?’ Unsurprisingly, Labour MP Jess Phillips spoke against the motion – yet in doing so she managed to prove exactly why Labour are in fact hopelessly sunk.

The key moment was when Spiked’s Ella Whelan challenged Phillips for having quote tweeted and then promptly deleted an article that was supportive of Kathleen Stock, the philosophy professor hounded out of her job for her audacious view that women deserve some of their own spaces. 

‘This is worth a read. Thoughtful and gentle,’ said Phillips on Twitter, though apparently she quickly decided it wasn’t worth a read and removed the tweet.

Red faced, Phillips denied that there was any pressure to delete and suggested that she didn’t like ‘dickheads’ arguing underneath the post. Phillips then reminded the audience that she has dedicated her ‘entire life (to) talking about women-only spaces’, which would be wonderful if Phillips could spell out exactly what she thinks a woman is.