“Even in the four years that I have been
here, we’ve managed to change the way
that women in refuges can and can’t
access childcare. People don’t forget any
more when they’re making policy. They
go, ‘Hang on, what’s Jess going to moan
about in this bill?’” she says, proudly.
She’s had to learn on her feet. “I didn’t
really know what it was going to be like
here, how you went about doing any of
it.” She arrived inauspiciously enough,
at the death rattle of Ed Miliband’s
Labour leadership, elected in 2015 in
her home constituency. Two years later,
after Corbyn had taken over and Theresa
May called a snap election in the wake
of the EU referendum, she increased
her majority from 6,595 votes to 16,574
(a 37 per cent increase in her share of
the vote). A star was born.
It’s a good time to be seen as opposite
to the “metropolitan elite”, but her
rise is more about personality than
circumstance. A real-world pragmatist,
she voted for Yvette Cooper in the 2015
Labour leadership election and has little
patience for Corbyn’s doctrine-over-you policy emails, being like, ‘I actually
think it’s quite reasonable what you
said about Brexit, but we couldn’t
concentrate because you could see a bit
of your cleavage.’” Her eyes flash with
fury. “It’s just like, f**k off!”
Rather than bending to accepted
protocol, which has it that women in
politics must walk a bizarre tightrope
between being perfectly presented at all
times and not looking like they care too
much, Phillips remains true to herself.
Famously, she’s worn Converse and
black jeans in the House of Commons
chamber, and is a great believer in the
power of lipstick (“Mac Matte Ruby
Woo”). She uses it as psychological war
paint, though says her sons – Danny, 11,
and Harry, 14 – will often say, “Oh,
Mum, you don’t need to wear make-up,
it’s just the patriarchy telling you that.”
She laughs. “I’m like, ‘God, shut up.
I wish I never taught you this stuff.’”
“There’s not a single diet I haven’t
been on,” she adds, deadpan. “Cabbage
soup, Atkins, Keto...” Recently, she’s
been doing low-calorie and fast days, >dialogue tendencies. Unlike many
Labour leaders, her Brexit stance is clear:
although she represents a community
that voted to leave, she wants a second
referendum for the key reason that
leaving the EU will lead to job losses.
In parliament, she proved a natural,
quickly learning to hustle and spot
where a bill could best be tweaked for
social good, and to keep a broad church
of cross-party relationships. She talks
to Jacob Rees-Mogg more than she does
to some in her own party, but mostly
finds the whole place exasperating. “I’ve
become acclimatised to this ridiculous
life,” she sighs. Sexism remains ever
present. “When I was first here, there
was that essence that you were a
fascination to people because you were
a young woman, and very opinionated.
There was quite a lot of shushing. A
Tory man’s favourite slur is, ‘This isn’t
a sixth-form debating society.’” Often,
her inbox fares even worse. “I get
constant comments on the clothes I
wear, how fat or thin I am, about my
tits, my hair, everything. People will sendOpposite: Phillips
outside her constituency
office on Birmingham’s
Yardley Road. Above:
The MP’s desk space is
decorated with pinned-
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