Jess Phillips not racist, Labour frontbencher says amid online row

Labour MP Jess Phillips is not racist, shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson has said, following a social media row involving Ms Phillips and a prominent headteacher.

Katharine Birbalsingh - from the Michaela Community School - has accused Ms Phillips of racism and bullying.

On Sunday, Ms Phillipson said Ms Birbalsingh should raise any concerns through a formal parliamentary process.

Ms Birbalsingh had already written to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

The Twitter row began after Ms Birbalsingh posted a picture in May of the late popstar Tina Turner alongside Ms Turner's abusive ex-husband, Ike Turner, with the caption: "Good times."

In response, Ms Phillips, who is shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding, wrote: "Domestic abuse is never OK and we will defeat those who prop up the status quo."

Shortly afterwards Ms Birbalsingh deleted the tweet, then posted: "To the lunatics accusing me of celebrating wife beating - I tweeted a gif with a number of photos of Tina.

"For some reason it rested on one photo which I didn't notice when I tweeted... nor did I know that was Ike."

She added that "the explanation is not that I like wife beating".

Later that same day - May 24 - Ms Phillips wrote on Twitter: "Seems that far from holding any kind of line that headteacher woman seems not to be able to take criticism of her actions. I'd be keen to hear of domestic abuse policies she has in her school or teaching plans, perhaps I'll write."

On Saturday, Ms Birbalsingh posted an open letter to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on her Twitter account, writing that Ms Phillips' behaviour was "a clear example of 'unconscious bias'".

In the four-page letter, she wrote that Ms Phillips "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 left wing view of the world, or they are worthy of her contempt".

Ms Birbalsingh said that she was not suggesting Ms Phillips "hates all people of colour".

She added that Ms Phillips called into question her school's safeguarding policies "in a deliberate attempt to challenge my competence as a headteacher".

She said that after Ms Phillips' tweets, people contacted her institution saying it was "unsafe for female teachers and pupils". She said the Teaching Regulation Agency had been contacted with a demand that she be struck off.

The shadow secretary did not refer to Ms Birbalsingh's ethnicity in any of her posts.

Asked on Sky News' Sophy Ridge on Sunday show whether she thought Ms Phillips was racist, Ms Phillipson 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."

Ms Birbalsingh - dubbed Britain's strictest head teacher - attracted controversy during her time as the chair of the Social Mobility Commission between November 2021 and January 2023.

She came under fire last April for saying girls are less likely to choose physics A-level because it involves "hard maths" - later admitting her remarks had been "clunky".

She resigned as the government's top social mobility adviser in January saying that she was doing "more harm than good" in the role.

More recently, Ms Birbalsingh - who describes herself as a "floating voter" - spoke at the National Conservatism conference.

The BBC has contacted Ms Phillips for comment.