HARDCORE Remainer Jess Phillips announced she is running to be Labour leader with a blistering attack on Jeremy Corbyns policies.
She confirmed her leadership bid after waking up with fire” in her “belly.
The outspoken MP savaged the Labour leaders woeful response to the anti-Semitism crisis and refusal to pick a side on Brexit.
She said the party must elect a different kind of leader to avoid more crushing defeats at the ballot box.
The outspoken Labour backbencher also warned the party is in big trouble if it fails to win back support of working class voters.
Launching her leadership bid with a video, Ms Phillips took aim at Mr Corbyns Brexit dithering.
She said: We have got to be brave and bold and bring people with us, not try and look all ways.
Trying to please everyone usually means we have pleased no one. Now is not the time to be meek.
Boris Johnson needs to be challenged, with passion, heart and precision. We can beat him.
She added: Too often, like in the woeful response to anti-semitism, the Labour Party has been afraid to speak the truth.
In addition she vowed to be bold in winning back the seats in the Red Wall which crumbled to the Tories.
Phillips also took a swipe at her rivals for the Labour crown, accusing them of not getting why the party got so badly hammered.
The election bloodbath saw Labour suffer their worst election defeat since 1935.
A slew of once rock-solid Labour seats turning blue for the first time in generations.
She said: Now is not the time to play it safe. What Ive heard so far in this debate is totally inadequate to the scale of the problem.
Voters have changed. The electoral map has been transformed. Communication in a social media age is different.
We need to recognise that politics has changed in a fundamental way by electing a different kind of leader. More of the same will lead to more of the same result.
LEADER RACE
The outspoken frontbencher joins shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and shadow treasury minister Clive Lewis as those to have formally declared their bids.
Others are also expected to announce their intentions soon, with shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, close Corbyn ally Rebecca Long-Bailey and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy considering challenges.
Hours after the election result, she had said: “If people trust me, then yes I will take a role in rebuilding.”
Ms Phillips, who supported victims of domestic abuse for Women’s Aid before entering Parliament in 2015, would appear to be a relatively popular choice with the Labour members who will help select the leader.
She came third in a YouGov survey of the membership behind both Sir Keir and shadow business secretary Ms Long-Bailey.
Sir Keir would beat Ms Long-Bailey, who is the favoured candidate of key figures in the current leadership, in a run-off 61% to 39%, according to the early survey.
But the other candidates will be hoping to boost their profiles with the race not expected to formally get under way until Tuesday and a new leader not expected until the end of March.
Labour’s disastrous election performance that helped Boris Johnson’s Tories win an 80-strong majority has been the subject of an intense post-mortem examination.
The party’s Brexit position, Mr Corbyn’s unpopularity and his ambitious left-wing programme have all been the subject of scrutiny.
