Jessica Rose Phillips (née Trainor; born 9 October 1981) is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Yardley since 2015.

[17] Phillips was selected from an all-women shortlist[25] to contest Birmingham Yardley in June 2013, which was then represented by John Hemming of the Liberal Democrats.

[27][28][29][30] Her maiden speech concerned homelessness and "improving [Britain]'s response to victims of domestic and sexual violence and abuse in all its forms.

[4] In September 2016, she was elected chair of the Women's Parliamentary Labour Party (WPLP), defeating her predecessor Dawn Butler, considered a Corbyn ally.

[42] In July 2017, Phillips called for a review into elections for chairs of House of Commons select committees due to the relatively low number of female candidates.

[44] In July 2018 it was reported that Phillips served as deputy editor of The House, the in-house Parliamentary magazine published by the Dods Group, which had been purchased by Conservative Party donor and former vice-chairman Michael Ashcroft, earning an annual salary of £8,000 for two hours' work per month.

[45] In March 2019, she said: "I think I'd be a good prime minister" and that "I feel like I can't leave the Labour Party without rolling the dice one more time.

[52] Phillips called for an exclusion zone to prevent protests outside Anderton Park Primary School in Balsall Heath against lessons on inclusivity.

[56] Following Corbyn's decision to step down as Labour leader after the party's defeat in the general election, Phillips was suggested as a potential successor.

The first poll of Labour members suggested she could secure 12% of first-preference votes in a leadership competition, putting her third behind Sir Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey.

Phillips acknowledged her performance in the first candidate hustings was poor, writing "I was awful because I was trying to hit a million different lines and messages in 40 seconds.

"[59] She dropped out of the leadership election campaign on 21 January, during the second stage of obtaining nominations from trade unions, affiliate bodies and local parties[60] and subsequently announced her support for Lisa Nandy.

[70] 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]".

[76] 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.

"[76] 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.

[79] She wrote in The Independent: "I commend Philip Davies for changing the thrust of the debate to focus on male suicide – but in and of itself this day serves no useful function".

[80] 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.

[85][86] 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.

"[87] 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.

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.

[96][97] In support of Phillips, health secretary Wes Streeting described Musk's comments as "a disgraceful smear",[98] while Starmer accused politicians and activists of "spreading lies and misinformation" over grooming gangs.

[105][74] In May 2016, after campaigning against online bullying, Phillips said she received thousands of threatening or demeaning tweets within a 36-hour period, including allusions to rape.

[109] 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.