Labour hopeful backs fix rooms
Jess Phillips “open minded on drugs decriminalisation”
A LAbour leadership candidate has backed calls for a safe consumption room for addicts to help deal with Scotland’s drug death crisis.
Jess Phillips, who has spoken about her brother’s past heroin addiction, said she “absolutely” supported the radical move and is “open-minded” on decriminalisation.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Record, the high-profile MP also claimed Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell “harmed” Scottish Labour by dumping the party’s opposition to IndyRef2.
And she said the Tory attack line of Labour being in the pocket of the SNP had “cut through” with voters.
Phillips has represented Birmingham Yardley since 2015 and is one of five candidates hoping to replace Jeremy Corbyn.
A fierce critic of the outgoing leader, she is popular among party moderates, who believe her plain-speaking style will resonate with voters who have deserted Labour.
Speaking exclusively to the Record in Glasgow yesterday, Phillips addressed our Addicted campaign to deal with a drug death crisis that claimed 1187 lives in 2018.
We have called on the Tory Government to approve a safe consumption room in Glasgow and have also backed the decriminalisation of drugs.
Phillips’ brother Luke used to be a heroin addict and lived in Glasgow at one point.
She said: “I speak as somebody whose brother lived in this city for many years and suffered from hideous and life-limiting drug addictions. It really, really matters to me getting this right.”
She described the drug death figures as “utterly harrowing” and said of the consumption room plan, which has been blocked by the Tories: “I absolutely would support that.”
On decriminalisation, she said: “I am absolutely open-minded to be brought round on that matter.”
When it comes to Scottish politics, Phillips robustly opposes IndyRef2 and has said Labour under her leadership would be unashamedly Unionist.
She said Labour had to make its opposition to another referendum clear, adding: “Post-referendum politics has been the same across the board – you don’t get a hearing unless you are clear on the big constitutional question of the day.”
Asked how this message would reach the 45 per cent of voters who backed Yes and who support the SNP, she said: “You talk about people’s lives. You talk
about people’s schools, their hospitals, their jobs.
“To assume that you can’t talk to people just because they disagree with you on an issue is something that we are going to have to get over in politics.”
Until the summer, Scottish Labour was staunchly opposed to IndyRef2 but during a trip to Edinburgh, McDonnell ditched this position.
He said a Labour government would not block another referendum, a U-turn that infuriated Scottish Labour MSPs and MPs.
Phillips is scathing of the Shadow
Chancellor’s intervention. She said: “What John McDonnell did harmed Scottish Labour.”
The announcement by McDonnell, an MP in London, fuelled claims that Scottish Labour is merely a branch office of the UK party.
Phillips said: “We have got to make that not feel like the case, and not be the case.”
Scottish Labour figures believe McDonnell’s move was evidence of him writing off the party north of the Border and making coalition overtures to the SNP. Phillips suggested that the whiff of a pact between the parties harmed
Labour, saying: “Why would you vote Labour in Scotland if you knew you could vote SNP and get a Labour government?”
Asked if she is a Unionist, she replied: “Yes. I am proud to be from the United Kingdom.”
Although Corbyn will be gone within months, fellow left-winger Richard Leonard remains as Scottish leader. Has Phillips been impressed with him?
“He’s been in an incredibly difficult position,” she said. “What we have to be really careful of is not reacting to the losses with trying to please all sides.”
Asked what Leonard’s strengths are as a leader, she said: “To be fair, he tried to be clear on IndyRef2.”
When I said that it sounded like she was struggling to list some strengths, she added: “He’s not somebody that I have had a huge amount to deal with, is the absolute honest truth.”
Phillips had a Twitter spat earlier this week with Nicola Sturgeon after she had a dig at nationalism.
She said the Tories tend to talk about the Scottish “Nationalist” Party at Westminster – a deliberate error she believes annoys the SNP – but added: “You can see that they don’t like the idea of nationalism but fundamentally what they are arguing for is not international. It is not about solidarity across our nation. Fundamentally it is the same.”
On the cybernat trolling she has endured this week, she said: “In lots of ways it presents exactly the same, as a sort of… wanting to be cut off, ‘we are better’, or feeling as if there is something ‘other’. “And that is nationalism to me.” Her main message on Scotland is to party members who will decide the contest. She believes Labour should oppose IndyRef2 – and stick to it. “Clarity is really important,” she said.
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