A complaint against the Labour frontbencher Jess Phillips by one of Britain’s highest-profile headteachers accusing her of “racist and bullying behaviour” could be investigated, the shadow education secretary has suggested.
Bridget Phillipson, a senior member of Keir Starmer’s team, said any complaint against a Labour MP should be looked into, but that she did not believe Phillips was racist.
Katharine Birbalsingh, sometimes described as “Britain’s strictest headteacher”, who runs the high-achieving Michaela community school in north-west London, accused the Birmingham Yardley MP of seeking to “whip up a social media mob” against her. She has reported Phillips to the parliamentary commissioner for standards.
The headteacher, a former head of the Social Mobility Commission, wrote to Starmer, saying: “She [Phillips] inspired a vicious mob attack against me on Twitter on the evening of 24 May 2023, and called into question my school’s safeguarding policies in a deliberative attempt to challenge my competence as a headteacher.”
The teacher said it had happened after she inadvertently tweeted a picture of Tina Turner alongside her abusive former husband Ike Turner amid tributes to the late star.
Phillips then tweeted: “Hold the line!” and added: “Stay with me! Domestic abuse is never ok and we will defeat those who prop up the status quo …”
None of her subsequent tweets referred to Birbalsingh’s race.
Birbalsingh wrote to Starmer: “Ms Phillips does not know me. She has never met me. She has never visited my school. The school is not in her constituency. In her shadow ministerial role, she has not previously publicly accused any other school headteachers in this way.
“My view is that Ms Phillips’ extreme and unprompted hostility towards me is motivated by my race. By this I do not mean that she hates all people of colour.
“Her behaviour is a clear example of ‘unconscious bias’. I mean that she hates me, despite not knowing me, because she subscribes to the idea that Black and Asian individuals in public life owe a duty to voice opinions that match with a leftwing view of the world, or they are worthy of her contempt.”
Birbalsingh later tweeted on Sunday that she was mistaken about a point in her original letter to Starmer. She said: “Jess Phillips didn’t say ‘You ain’t no Asian’, and instead said ‘You ain’t no Aslan’.
“It was a poor quality screenshot someone took that I was reading.”
She then insisted that her other points about being subjected to a pile-on still stood.
Phillips is the shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding and a former party leadership contender.
Birbalsingh, who recently spoke at the National Conservatism conference in London, said she was a “floating voter” and was not a member of the Conservative party.
However, she said her decision to attend the rightwing event helped explain Phillips’s approach to her.
Birbalsingh claimed the frontbencher had brought Labour into “disrepute” and called on Starmer to take action.
“I would like assurances that regardless of what views are held by any member of your shadow team or party, baseless and unfounded abuse will not be directed towards my school and me. This is entirely unacceptable,” she told the Labour leader.
Asked about the matter on Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme, Phillipson said: “My reaction to anyone who feels unhappy about the conduct of a Labour MP is that they should complain through our processes and then the matter can be looked into.
“And as Members of Parliament, we’re also subject to a code of conduct … and there are processes in place for people who are unhappy with an MP’s behaviour, to report it in that way.
“I would suggest that to any individual that’s unhappy about the conduct of a Member of Parliament.”
Asked if she thought Phillips was racist, her colleague said: “No, I don’t. But I think it’s important that if people have concerns, if they’re unhappy about the conduct of a Member of Parliament, that can be investigated as part of that process.”
Phillips was approached for comment.
