In her resignation letter, as she quit Labour’s shadow cabinet over Keir Starmer’s stance on Gaza, Birmingham Yardley MP, Jess Phillips, said she had voted “with my constituents, my head and my heart” on the issue.
Phillips was the most high-profile Labour MP to resign in order to back an SNP motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, in defiance of the party line.
The constituents whose views she said she was representing are the people of Yardley, in east Birmingham, an area which Phillips said “could boast of having a resident of pretty much every country in the world”, including a sizeable Muslim population of more than 41,000 people – 35% of all voters in the seat.
Many voters, a number of which said they had emailed Phillips personally asking her to back the ceasefire amendment, said they were pleased to see their MP taking a stand over the issue.
“I emailed her and she replied to me yesterday saying she would vote for a ceasefire. But I was shocked to hear she had to resign because of her opinion,” said Ambreen Hussain, a 43-year-old lecturer at Birmingham City University.
“Because it’s not an issue related to a particular group, it’s about humanity. If anywhere in the world, children are being killed, that is inhumane. When I see it in the news I’m crying, it’s so hard to see.”
Imran Iqbal, 34, shopping with his wife, Henna, 31, also said he admired the MP for standing up for what she believed in.
“I think what she’s done is good because a lot of people in the area support the call for a ceasefire, so it’s good that’s she representing us. She’s with the people,” he said. “But it’s unfair that she had to resign to do that.”
Phillips has often spoken about her resolution in speaking up for her constituents in Westminster.
In her 2021 book, The Life of an MP, she ranked her loyalties as “constituency, party, country, in that order”, and said she thought of her constituents and their families abroad when discussing issues of foreign affairs.
In her first interview since the vote, with LBC, Phillips said her vote did not mean she wanted to harm Labour: “Some people are treating me a little bit like I’ve died. I’m still alive and I wish to be an asset to Keir Starmer, and I hope that is the way in which we go forward.”
Marcus Hall, a Yardley resident, said: “Obviously she’s got a right to say what she thinks. I’m not too keen on Jess Phillips but in this particular instance I think it’s right what she did.
“But I guess there is a question of whether she’s appealing to her constituents or doing it for herself. If she really means what she said then good on her.”
Baber Baz, a Liberal Democrat councillor for Yardley West, said while Phillips’s stance would be applauded by constituents, it might be too little too late amid growing anger over Labour’s stance on a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“She’s still under the leadership of Keir Starmer, and as long as she is under the banner of Labour, I’m not sure if people’s mindsets will change,” he said.
“People are very upset with Labour over this. When I went to the mosque for Friday prayers, it was the biggest burning issue, what’s going on in Gaza. What the party leadership think and what the opinion is on the ground are totally different.”
He added that he believes the issue could have a significant impact at the next general election.
“A lot of the Muslim voters in this area have been loyal to Labour probably since they were allowed to vote. And they vote for the party, not the individual,” he said.
Following her resignation from the frontbench, Phillips said on Thursday that she would “continue to work hard representing my constituents of Birmingham Yardley as a backbench MP, and fight for the Labour government the country desperately needs at the next general election”.
