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An Evening with Jess Phillips

Politics &
Economics

On the integrity deficit facing British politics and what the new Labour government should do about it

Jess Phillips is not your conventional politician. If Prime Minister Keir Starmer has been criticized for his lack of charisma, Phillips has it in abundance. Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley since 2015 she has never shied away from controversy nor has she been afraid to veer away from Labour Party lines to uphold her political principles. 

At 14, Phillips left the Labour Party after Tony Blair’s invasion of Iraq. In 2016, she was a vocal critic of former leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn and resigned in protest over his leadership. Most recently, in late 2023, she quit the Labour frontbench over Keir Starmer’s stance on Gaza. She has never played it safe. 

In August 2024 Phillips returned to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss a new era in British politics. In conversation with journalist Helen Lewis, she explored how the Labour government should confront the  deep rot that she believes has set into British politics. Drawing from the themes of her new book Let’s Be Honest she presented a bold vision for how to create a new politics that reinstates integrity as its primary virtue. 

Speakers for the motion

  • Jess Phillips

    Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley

Chair

  • Helen Lewis

    Journalist, author and broadcaster

Speakers are subject to change.

Speakers

Speaker

Jess Phillips

Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley

First elected as the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley in 2015 and was elected chair of the Women’s Parliamentary Labour Party in September 2016. Before becoming an MP, she worked with victims of domestic violence, sexual violence and human trafficking, and she continues to speak up on behalf of those who struggle to have their voice heard. Jess lives with her husband and two sons in Birmingham, where she was born and raised.
Chair

Helen Lewis

Journalist, author and broadcaster

Cambridge professor and columnist for the New Statesman. Her current research concentrates on the political economy of energy and the long history of the democratic, economic, and geopolitical disruptions of the twenty-first century. She is a regular panellist on Talking Politics and co-hosts the These Times podcast for Unherd, which seeks to provide a deeper, historical understanding of the news.

 

Speakers are subject to change.