Jess Phillips is the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, having first been elected to parliament at the 2015 general election.

In the 2024 general election for Birmingham Yardley, Phillips received 11,275 votes, representing 31.2% of the vote share. The Workers Party of Britain (WPB) candidate, Jody McIntyre, came second with 10,582 votes (29.3%), while the Reform UK candidate, Nora Kamberi, secured 5,061 votes (14.0%). Phillips was duly elected with a significantly reduced majority of 693.

Jess Phillips: resignation and recent political career

Phillips served as parliamentary under-secretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women and girls in the Home Office from July 2024 to May 2026.

In May 2026, Phillips resigned and called for Keir Starmer to step down as prime minister. The move followed the 2026 local elections and devolved elections to the Scottish Parliament and Senedd Cymru. In resigning, Phillips joined a rebellion of around 100 Labour MPs calling for Starmer’s departure.

In her letter of resignation, Phillips wrote that she could not “keep waiting around for a crisis to push for faster progress”.

She stated: “I think you are a good man fundamentally, who cares about the right things, however I have seen first-hand how that is not enough. The desire not to have an argument means we rarely make an argument, leaving opportunities for progress stalled and delayed.”

Phillips pointed in particular to her efforts to tackle online child sexual abuse. She contended that, in her capacity as a minister, she had presented “solutions” to prevent children in the UK from being able to take explicit images of themselves.

The outgoing minister added: “It has taken me a year to get you to agree to even threaten to legislate in this space. Not legislate, just threaten. This is the definition of incremental change. Nothing bold about it.

“The announcement was meant to be in March, I’m still on a promise this will happen in June, I’ve given up believing it. How many children were left without a safety net in the time we dilly dallied and worried about tech bosses?”

Jess Phillips and Gaza ceasefire vote (2023)

Prior to the 2024 general election, which saw Labour returned to power after 14 years in opposition, Phillips was shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding (April 2020 – November 2023).

Phillips resigned from the frontbench on 15 November 2023 to vote in favour of a motion tabled by the Scottish National Party (SNP) calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza – defying the instruction set out by the party’s frontbench. Labour had tabled its own motion, making a more moderate appeal for a “humanitarian pause” in the conflict and ordered its representatives to support that stance.

A total of 56 Labour MPs supported the SNP amendment including 10 who resigned from the frontbench in order to do so. Phillips was the most senior Labour MP to back the amendment.

In her resignation letter, Phillips said she had decided to stand down with a “heavy heart”.

She wrote: “On this occasion I must vote with my constituents, my head, and my heart which has felt as if it were breaking over the last four weeks with the horror of the situation in Israel and Palestine.”

She added: “It is with great regret that I walk away from the role of domestic abuse and safeguarding shadow minister, however I don’t walk away from the work. Working with Yvette Cooper on the mission to halve incidents of domestic abuse within 10 years of a Labour government has been an honour…

“I will continue to do everything I can to deliver a Labour government and real change in the field of women’s safety.”

Jess Phillips: Labour leadership contest (2020)

Phillips stood as a candidate in the 2020 Labour leadership election. The contest was triggered by the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn following the party’s defeat in the 2019 general election, which resulted in Labour’s fewest seats in the House of Commons since 1935.

Phillips, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, had been a prominent critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party. She withdrew from the contest on 21 January 2020, suggesting that she could not “unite all parts of our movement”.

During the campaign, Phillips won the support of 21 Labour MPs – including high-profile figures. She was endorsed by Darren Jones, Liz Kendall, Peter Kyle, Pat McFadden, Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting.

Upon joining the race in January 2020, Phillips acknowledged the contest would not “necessarily be an easy fight” and called on Labour members to “try something different”.

From 2015 to 2020, Phillips established herself as a leading internal critic of Corbyn’s leadership. In December 2015, Phillips said she would knife Corbyn “in the front, not the back” if she thought he was damaging the party.

She stated: “The day that you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won’t knife you in the back, I’ll knife you in the front.”

Jess Phillips: women’s rights campaigner

Phillips is a prominent campaigner on women’s rights, domestic violence and safeguarding. On an annual basis in the commons, she reads out the names of all women killed by men in the UK over the previous year to highlight the issue of domestic abuse and femicide.

In February 2024, marking international women’s day, Phillips said that she was “tired that women’s safety matters so much less in this place than small boats.”

She added: “I am tired of fighting for systematic change and being given table scraps. Never again do I want to hear a politician say that lessons will be learnt from abject failure. It is not true. This list is no longer just a testament to these women’s lives.

“It is a testament to our collective failure. At least half of the names I am about to read out could have been saved”.

In 2025 and 2026, in her capacity as a minister, Phillips listed the names of those women killed, or suspected to have been killed, by men over the past year from the government despatch box in the commons.

In 2026, she said: “Today, as I do every year, I carry out the heavy task of reading out the names of every woman suspected of being killed by a man over the last year. This is a day that never gets easier.

“But today isn’t my moment. This moment belongs to the women who have paid with their lives because of our collective failure to protect them from harm.

“So, we will continue to honour these women with every action we take. We will deploy the full power of the state to halve violence against women and girls in a decade.”

Jess Phillips: rise to prominence (2015-2020)

Phillips was appointed as parliamentary private secretary (PPS) to Lucy Powell as shadow education secretary shortly after her election to parliament. A PPS acts as an unpaid parliamentary assistant, providing a link between the senior frontbencher and backbench MPs. In June 2016, Phillips was among those to resign from the shadow frontbench in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and his approach to the Brexit referendum.

In a post to social media, Phillips stated: “Seems slightly highfalutin to resign as I was just the PPS in the education team but it was Lucy who asked me, she is gone. So am I.”

In her formal resignation letter addressed to Corbyn, Phillips wrote: “My main concern is that I’m not sure how good you are at using what people say or need to enact change. I think in this time of huge shifts the opposition must be at its strongest and its best. Saying stuff won’t cut it. We are going to need strong heads, open flexible hearts and detailed forensic wits.”

She added: “The Labour Party is not about you, it’s about us, most of all it’s about them, the brilliant people in the UK, even the ones who don’t agree with us. We need action, we really needed it last week the week before.

“I’m really worried that you cannot see that you have made this all about you and not about them. Be the socialist you say you are, do the right thing and let the Labour Party be the opposition it needs to be now, when people need it most.

“All the best. I know none of this has been easy on you and your loved ones. Nobody deserves some of the crap you have put up with. Sorry if I was ever to blame for any upset, perhaps sometimes I took straight talking honest politics a little too literally.”

In September 2016, Phillips threatened to resign as a Labour MP and sit as an independent if Corbyn was re-elected as the party’s leader. Speaking to Channel 4 News, she was asked if she could continue as a Labour MP in those circumstances.

She responded: “I think I would find it incredibly difficult to be honest.”

Asked further if she could sit as an independent, Phillips added: “I think I’m going to wait and see what happens. He has crossed a couple of red lines for me and I will find it very difficult to fall in line with a further Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party.”

Phillips was a member of the House of Commons backbench business committee (2015-2019) and the women and equalities committee (2015-2019).

Phillips delivered her maiden speech on 28 May 2015 during a debate on the queen’s speech.

In it, she said: “I requested to make my maiden speech in this section of the queen’s speech debates because, along with all things Birmingham, Yardley, I am deeply committed to improving our country’s response to victims of domestic and sexual violence and abuse in all its forms.”

She added: “Having worked for years in a service that operated refuges, rape crisis, child sexual exploitation services and human trafficking services, I know that we need to do more. We need look no further than at the poor rape conviction rates to know that for very vulnerable victims our justice system is too often just another establishment that has failed to protect them.”

Political Views

Leadership elections and loyalty

Labour leadership 2015: Phillips nominated Yvette Cooper for the party’s leadership in June 2015. The election followed the resignation of Ed Miliband after the party’s defeat in the 2015 general election. It was the first contest held under the “one member, one vote” system, which replaced the previous electoral college.

Cooper, the shadow home secretary, secured 59 nominations from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), comfortably exceeding the 35 required to reach the final ballot. She ultimately finished third in the contest with 17% of the vote.

Corbyn loyalty list: In March 2016, Phillips was labelled as “core group negative” by the Corbyn leadership in a leaked list which categorised Labour MPs by their perceived loyalty. This label suggested the Corbyn leadership viewed Phillips as a critic but not openly hostile.

Labour leadership 2016: Phillips supported Angela Eagle for the party’s leadership in July 2016. The election was triggered by a challenge to Jeremy Corbyn following the EU referendum, which led to a wave of shadow cabinet resignations and a vote of no confidence supported by 172 MPs.

Eagle, the former shadow first secretary of state, was the first to formally launch a challenge against Corbyn. However, she withdrew from the race on 19 July after attracting fewer nominations than Owen Smith

Phillips went on to support Smith’s candidacy. Smith, the former shadow work and pensions secretary, was ultimately defeated by Corbyn, who won with an increased mandate of 61.8% of the vote.

Brexit and Europe

Brexit referendum: Phillips supported Remain in the 2016 Brexit referendum, and therefore disagreed with a majority of her constituents, 60.1% of whom voted to Leave.

Article 50: In February 2017, Phillips voted in favour of the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill. The legislation empowered the prime minister to notify the Council of the European Union of the UK’s intention to withdraw, formally triggering the process set out in Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union. MPs supported the bill by 498 votes to 114 at second reading.

People’s vote support (2019): Phillips signed a January 2019 statement by Labour MPs calling for a “people’s vote” or second referendum. The statement, signed by 71 Labour MPs, read: “Defeat of the Tory [Brexit] deal in a public vote would give us all a chance to campaign for the anti-austerity policies and a Labour government that deals with the true causes of the Brexit vote, and a reformed Europe that works for all people.”

Remain pledge: During the 2019 general election campaign, Phillips was one of 193 Labour candidates to sign the anti-Brexit “Remain pledge”, drawn up by the campaign group Remain Labour.

It stated: “Labour is committed to a confirmatory referendum, to give you the final say on Brexit. If elected as your Labour MP, I pledge to campaign to Remain in the EU.”

Welfare

Welfare vote (July 2025): Phillips voted in favour of the government’s flagship welfare bill at second reading. The vote came after ministers agreed to significant concessions to avoid defeat via a mass rebellion of Labour MPs on 1 July 2025.

Assisted dying

Phillips voted in favour of the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, better known as the assisted dying bill, at both second reading (November 2024) and third reading (June 2025).

Setting out her position, Phillips told BBC Breakfast shortly before the bill’s second reading: “I am a person who fundamentally believes in the right for people to make a choice about their bodies.”

Social values and conscience issues

Abortion decriminalisation (2025): Phillips voted in favour of a backbench amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill that sought to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales in June 2025. The amendment, which was passed by a majority of 242 votes, removed women from the threat of prosecution for ending a pregnancy at any stage. As an issue of conscience, MPs were allowed to vote according to their personal beliefs.

Foreign policy and security

Trident renewal (2016): Phillips voted in favour of a government motion calling for the renewal of the Trident nuclear deterrent system in July 2016. The motion, which was passed by 472 votes to 117, committed the UK to constructing a new fleet of submarines to carry the nation’s nuclear weapons. Labour was split over the issue with 140 of its 230 MPs going against leader Jeremy Corbyn and backing the motion.

Syria airstrikes (2015): Phillips voted against a government motion to extend UK airstrikes against Isis from Iraq into Syria in December 2015. The motion, which was passed by 397 votes to 223 after a ten-hour debate in the House of Commons, authorised the RAF to conduct strikes against Isis targets in Syria.

Before Politics

Born Jessica Rose Trainor in Birmingham on 9 October 1981, Phillips attended King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls. She studied economic and social history and social policy at the University of Leeds, graduating in 2003.

Phillips later gained a postgraduate diploma in public service management from the University of Birmingham.

Phillips quit the Labour Party in 2005 over her opposition to the Iraq War.

After graduating, Phillips worked for her parents’ company, Healthlinks. From 2010, she worked for the charity Women’s Aid in the West Midlands, managing refuges and support services for victims of domestic abuse.

Personal Life

Phillips is married to Tom Phillips. The couple have two sons.

Her parents are Stewart Trainor, a teacher, and Jean Trainor (née Mackay), a former NHS executive.

Trivia

Phillips is the author of several published books, including works focusing on politics and feminism, such as Everywoman: One Woman’s Truth About Speaking the Truth (2017) and Let’s Be Honest (2024).