Webchat with Labour leadership contender Jess Phillips MP on Monday January 20 at 1pm

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with Labour leadership contender Jess Phillips MP on Monday 20 January at 1pm.

Jess Phillips is Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley. Prior to being elected she worked for Women’s Aid, supporting victims of domestic violence. Her campaign says she is often described as the most “outspoken politician at Westminster”, having led campaigns against school cuts, immigration rights and better funding for women’s refuges.

In advance of her coming in, Jess has asked us to pass on the following: “if you share the aims and values of the Labour Party, you can have a vote on who should be Labour's next Leader if you join the Party by 5pm on Monday 20 January. You can join here and if you do it by 5pm on Monday you WILL have a vote in the contest. Find out more here.”

Please do join the chat on Monday at 1pm or if you can’t make it, leave a question here in advance.

We've invited and are hoping to have all of the contenders on over the next few weeks.

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is dominating a thread, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. (And we’ll suspend the accounts of anyone who continues after we've posted to ask people to stop, so please take note.) Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Many thanks,
MNHQ

So you do not believe that a woman is an adult human female (i.e. with the chromosomes XX)?

Is a woman just a "feeling" then? Nothing to do with biology?

As a Lifelong labour voter and gc feminist who do you suggest I vote for in the leadership contest?

Because it won't be you based on the answers upthread.

Biology is not bigotry.

I do believe transwomen are women and helped to write the report that suggested changes to the GRA

Thank you for your honesty.

You were the one that might have tempted me over. But I’m going to have to stick with the Tories, who despite their faults do actually know what a woman is.

You can’t protect women from sexism if you can’t define ‘woman’ or ‘sex’ correctly.

Do you think my 13 year old daughter would be in the wrong if she was uncomfortable about a male bodied person in her sports changing room or a public bathroom.where there are no specialists to risk assess safeguarding concerns.

I might self ID as a purple unicorn.

Why fucking not?

The world has gone MAD

And when the services are not 'allowed' to say no for fear of being targeted and de-funded?

Fundamentally, you believe the rights of transwomen to be in single sex spaces such as refuges overrules the need of vulnerable women to feel safe and comfortable?

She’s not going to answer ‘yes’ but it’s there in black and white isn’t it? That’s clearly what she believes.

Unbelievable and depressing in equal measures.

But if "transwomen are women" then talking of womens right to organise or to have places of safety is meaningless. It includes biological men.

I ran a women's domestic and sexual violence service and am confident in specialist services being able to risk assess for safety.

How? If you can tell whether a man is a risk, how come there are 14000 in prison for sex offences. And why does it only depend upon whether he is a risk. Why can't it ever, ever depend upon a woman not wanting a man around her, irrespective of risk.

perhaps so we have to make sure that we get this right and listen to all parties

How do you propose to listen to trans widows on this? I would be happy to help.

I do believe transwomen are women and helped to write the report that suggested changes to the GRA because fundamentally, during that enquiry, I couldn't understand how asking someone to live in a role as one sex or another would actually happen

I am struggling to understand what you mean by this. Can you please elaborate?

Sorry but if transwomen are women, then women only spaces, by your definition, will legally have to include those born male. No matter what those of us who are born female want. You're not listening. Not to us, anyway.

"Spousal veto"????

Nice words for forced marriage....

I do believe transwomen are women

Bye Jess.

I firmly believe that people should have access to education from cradle to grave - I grew up in the 60s/70s. Everyone went to night school, for classes which could help with their careers but also for fun. There were classes for flower arranging, art classes, as well as academic subjects. My mum attended cosmology classes for no reason other than interest when she was in her 50s and continued until funding was pulled in the 80s. It is a sad indictment that we only educate for education's sake and not for pleasure too.

How do you envisage education availablility for those who didn't settle well in school or who missed uni, or who - for whatever reasons - couldn't access education at teh requisite times? I'm not talking about Uni mature students, or grants etc. Local Authorities used to provide evening classes. I spend years in a fabulous Madrigal Choir run by the LA, for instance (I also learnt Latin at night school, but was too scarred by my school to take any exams in it; after years of night classes I did eventually gird my loins sufficiently to face examination hell, went to Uni and did well until disability hit me).

Could you confirm if you support self ID please? I don't think you have specifically answered that part of Bellini's question that you responded to up thread.

Could you confirm if you support self ID please?

I think this has already been massively confirmed.

@anguilla

The defining issue for my children's generation is likely to be climate change. Given that the only environmental legislation we have with any teeth comes from Europe and has the ECJ to ensure it is enforced, how will you ensure it isn't dropped as 'red tape' and how will you ensure it continues to be enforced?

What practical and realistic measures will you push for to reduce our carbon footprint and adapt to climate change?

I read the environment bits in the manifesto. The phrase 'cloud cuckoo land' came to mind.

The first thing I would say about this is it has been really refreshing in the last few weeks, in the media, in policy conversations, that the environment keeps coming up again and again. Perhaps it was Brexit taking the bandwidth before but whatever it is I feel, as a country, we're starting to all think about the future of our planet. And that's a good thing. We have to go further because we need to take the country with us to make the radical changes that are going to be needed to get to net zero any time soon. We need to make the conversation much less about statistics on carbon and temperatures and much more about our children's lungs, energy bills and the way we move around. I sometimes find that the debate tries to pitch one group against the other when in reality it's in all our vested interests. I've largely been convinced of this by my 14 year old son who speaks of little else. But there are some really practical things we need to do. We need to invest in green jobs and make saving our planet feel as if it is progress in people's individual lives. So their kids can have a future in the green economy. I wanted to buy an electric car recently and it was really expensive so government have got to pull levers, like eliminating vat on electric vehicles, so that people feel like they can take part. The government has the responsibility and power to bring people on board. It's the will that I worry they lack.

@StealthPolarBear

You're confident in their risk assessment every time? And you don't think even if they pose no risk, they may cause distress to women who have been abused or attached by men?

That's not my experience and women in refuges or in sexual violence services are all risk-assessed and can be turned away for a variety of reasons, such as safeguarding.

If you go down the route of turning people away for being distressing, I think we'd need to define 'distressing' otherwise people could be turned away for all sorts of things.

I do believe transwomen are women

How are you defining woman?

@AmazingAardvark

What made you decide to stand in this leadership contest?

I felt that the scale of the defeat the Labour party suffered, and the characteristics on which it suffered, meant that it needed a genuine fresh face. A different approach. A bold roll of the dice. And I think that is what I am. And that that is the only way we can beat Boris Johnson.

How are you defining woman?

Any man who feels like a woman. Plus actual women.
She’s been quite clear on this over time.

So you don't see the value of any single sex spaces?

@Mammajay

I am relieved to see you have been selected as a candidate for Labour leader. I love your spirit but don't want see see political debate as a sparring match or comedy stand up between you and Boris Johnson. Will we see a mixture of Jess, the intelligent MP, and Jess the quick witted, passionate debater??

The only thing I can say is yes! I think people sometimes misunderstand that you can be both quick and humorous and deal with deeply serious issues deeply seriously. I ran a human trafficking service for example, and helped advise the government on how the Modern Slavery Bill would be delivered, you can be serious and reach people with humour. You don't have to pick. Every time I have faced off Boris Johnson, it wasn't with humour, it was around deeply serious issues. He didn't know how to behave in response.

Because a penis is just another thing that could seem threatening to vulnerable women, like a tattoo or a piercing?