Party issues Phillips verbally clashed with fellow Labour MP
Diane Abbott on 14 September 2015 over the gender composition of
Jeremy Corbyn's first Shadow Cabinet. After she asked Corbyn why he had failed to appoint a woman to shadow the
great offices of state, Abbott accused her of being "sanctimonious" and said that Phillips was "not the only feminist in the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party]". Corbyn did not intervene. Owen Bennett wrote in
The Huffington Post that Phillips recounted: "I roundly told her to fuck off." When asked what Abbott did after that suggestion, Phillips replied: "She fucked off." According to Abbott in a January 2018
Guardian interview: "Jess Phillips never told me to fuck off. What was extraordinary is that she made a big deal of telling people she had." Phillips later apologised. Phillips told
Owen Jones in December 2015 that she had told Corbyn and his staff "to their faces: '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, if it looked as though he was damaging Labour's chances of winning the next general election. Responding to criticism about her use of language, Phillips said on Twitter: "I am no more going to actually knife Jeremy Corbyn than I am actually a breath of fresh air, or a pain in the arse."
Sex and gender equality In October 2015, Phillips was criticised on social media after she mocked the Conservative MP
Philip Davies for trying to get a debate about
International Men's Day. He cited men's issues like increasing male suicides, lower life expectancy relative to women, male victims of domestic violence, low educational achievement by working-class white boys and male experience of child custody cases. Phillips openly laughed and pulled faces while Davies spoke, and then stated that: "You'll have to excuse me for laughing. As the only woman on this committee, it seems like every day to me is International Men's Day." Davies responded by stating that, "If a male MP had reacted in that way about the need for debate on International Women's Day, there would have been hell to pay. It's entirely possible you'd be removed from Chambers or have the Whip removed. I'm surprised she finds that a laughing matter." In January 2016, Phillips said on
Question Time that events akin to the
mass sexual assaults in Cologne happened every week on Birmingham's
Broad Street. She insisted any "patriarchal culture" must be challenged, but the UK should not "rest on its laurels" when two women are murdered every week. In response to criticism she told the
Birmingham Mail: "This isn't something that refugees have brought into our country. This is something that's always existed". Journalist
Joan Smith criticised these remarks and asked Phillips to admit she was wrong. Phillips criticised the gender makeup of Labour's Shadow Cabinet reshuffle in January 2016. Phillips has commented that the "British Pakistani-Bangladeshi community" have "issues about women's roles in a family, in society" and were importing "wives for their disabled sons." In March 2021, following the
murder of Sarah Everard, Phillips read out the names of all women killed in the previous year where a man was subsequently convicted. She said "killed women are not vanishingly rare, killed women are common". She has continued to do this each year.
Transgender issues Philips' feminist stance has also been accused of
excluding trans communities, though this characterization is disputed, and some feminist organisations have raised concerns over her support for the
Nordic model for sex work. In 2020, Philips stated that she considers trans women to be women and in regards to her experience running a women's domestic and sexual violence service, that "We had a small number of trans women in my time there and they did not pose a risk". However in 2024, Philips stated that while she "is happy to refer to trans women as women", she believes that they should not be allowed into spaces such as women's rape crisis refuges and prisons, and should instead have their own separate facilities.
Inquiry into Oldham child sexual exploitation scandal In October 2024, Phillips rejected
Oldham Council's request for an independent
public inquiry into
historic child abuse by grooming gangs, favouring a locally-run inquiry instead, based on
similar approaches in other areas. In January 2025, the decision was criticised by the leader of the opposition,
Kemi Badenoch, saying that a national inquiry was "long overdue".
Elon Musk posted on
X that the decision was "disgraceful" and that she "deserves to be in prison", suggesting the rejection was to shield prime minister Keir Starmer from blame, since he had led the
Crown Prosecution Service when the abuse occurred. Musk further described Phillips as a "rape genocide apologist". In support of Phillips, health secretary
Wes Streeting described Musk's comments as "a disgraceful smear", while Starmer accused politicians and activists of "spreading lies and misinformation" over grooming gangs. A group of victims of gender-based violence, including three survivors of the
Telford sexual abuse scandal, also criticised Musk and said of Phillips, "[There is] no one in public life who has done more to support victims and survivors and to advocate for their interests". Phillips told
Newsnight that Musk's "disinformation" was endangering her, and told
Sky News that the previous Conservative government, of which Badenoch was a part, had also supported a local inquiry in Oldham.
Online and email abuse Phillips is frequently targeted for abuse by anonymous users on social media. In 2015, she was subjected to
rape threats on social media following her objections to International Men's Day. After she complained to Twitter and was told the tweets did not break its rules, she accused the company of "colluding" with her abusers. In response to
the murder of Labour MP
Jo Cox, in June 2016, Phillips stated that it "makes me want to fight harder". She wrote that they both regularly received online abuse and threats. In August 2016, she told
The World at One on
Radio 4 that a "
panic room" was being installed in her constituency office which now has an alarm system, and that improved locks have been fitted at her home. In an interview with
Stylist, published in October 2019, Phillips said of the hate she had experienced, "Fear and hatred can be the things that drive you. I don't always think of fear as a bad thing, it gives you fight-or-flight". ==Personal life==