Labour hopeful: It’s not just about where you come from
LABOUR LEADERSHIP candidate Jess Phillips hit out at the “patronising” idea that having a working-class background was all that mattered in the contest to replace Jeremy Corbyn.
As the deadline approached for new members to join the party in order to vote in the election, Ms Phillips said it was more important for people to know what the candidates stood for rather than where they had come from.
During the contest, Ms Phillips and her rivals have gone to great lengths to highlight their backgrounds.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer, who has faced scrutiny over his high-flying legal career and north London constituency, told The Guardian in December that his father was a toolmaker and his mother was a nurse so “the middle-class background just doesn’t wash”.
Yesterday Sir Keir became the first Labour leadership contender to be guaranteed a place on the final ballot paper after winning the support of retail union Usdaw.
He said that if he was elected Labour leader the party “will
stand shoulder to shoulder with the trade-union movement as we take on the Tories and rebuild trust with working people”.
He won his place on the final ballot after adding Usdaw’s endorsement to the support of Unison and the Socialist Environment
and Resources Association. Meanwhile, Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry launched her leadership campaign in Guildford near the council estate where she grew up.
Shadow Business Secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey has highlighted her formative years growing up in the shadow of Old Trafford football stadium and listening to her trade-unionist father talking about the threat to jobs in the docks.
On the Mumsnet website, Ms Phillips was asked which of the line-up – which also includes exshadow cabinet minister Lisa Nandy – had the most convincing working-class credentials.
Ms Phillips said: “It’s an impossible test. We all have different life experiences.
“I find trying to prove where you come from, as if that is all that matters to the voters, a bit patronising.”
The backbencher said it would be a “bold roll of the dice” for Labour members to elect her as leader. But she said the nature and scale of the defeat the Labour party had suffered meant “a genuine fresh face” was needed.
It will be a bold roll of the dice if I am elected but a fresh face is needed. Labour leadership contender Jess Phillips yesterday.