Intelligence Squared presents
An Evening with Jess Phillips on a New Era for British Politics
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.
On August 8 Phillips returns to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss a new era in British politics. In conversation with journalist Helen Lewis, she will explore 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, will present a bold vision for how to create a new politics that reinstates integrity as its primary virtue.
Join us at the Kiln Theatre just weeks after results of the general election to hear from one of Labour’s most recognisable faces about the integrity deficit facing British politics and what the new Labour government should do about it/
Learn more about Jess Phillips and Helen Lewis
Jess Phillips was 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.
Helen Lewis is a staff writer on The Atlantic and former associate editor of the New Statesman. She presents The Spark on BBC Radio 4, in which she interviews radical thinkers on their solutions to the structural problems of our age and frequently appears on political comedy shows like Have I Got News For You. Her first book is Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights.
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