Jess Phillips: ‘I’ve had to make changes to my life’ after Musk posts

One MP who has been accused of not engaging with the grooming gang issue is the Safeguarding minister Jess Phillips.

In an attack that provoked the fury of Sir Keir Starmer, Elon Musk accused her of being a “rape genocide apologist” and suggested she should be in prison.

Cathy Newman: Keir Starmer says that you have been put at risk after being publicly pilloried by Elon Musk. Is that how it feels? Do you feel afraid for your life, your family’s life?

Jess Phillips: It hasn’t been pleasant, and Keir is absolutely right in what he says. But I have had to sort of step outside of it and just try and crack on with my life and my work.

Cathy Newman: But to be blunt, has Elon Musk endangered your life?

Jess Phillips: There is absolutely no doubt that this whole storm, wherever it started, has meant that I have had to make changes to my life. Yes, that is absolutely the case.

Cathy Newman: Security changes?

Jess Phillips: Yeah, of course. And you have to consider risk in these situations. But I won’t actually let it change my life. I have a job to do, and I’m going to crack on with doing that job.

Cathy Newman: But there’s an element of fear in your life now, that was not there before?

Jess Phillips: The element of fear, that has existed in my life since the moment I was elected. Since the moment I was a woman who spoke up for other women and girls. The element of risk, it’s just elevated a bit of late.

Cathy Newman: Initially, there was virtual radio silence from the leadership, from your senior colleagues. Did that hurt? Were they worried about jeopardising the relationship with Donald Trump?

Jess Phillips: I genuinely, and you’d have to ask Keir Starmer who I spoke to, there was no radio silence for me. I spoke to Keir Starmer almost immediately. But I think genuinely the concern was that what reaction that they give, might cause me further harm.

Cathy Newman: While we’re talking about this, let’s reprise Elon Musk called you an ‘evil witch’, a ‘rape genocide apologist’. What is the point of online hate laws, of online safety laws, if the richest, most powerful tech titan of them all can’t be brought to heel for anything?

Jess Phillips: The laws apply to Elon Musk as much as they apply to anybody else.

Cathy Newman: You’d like to see him prosecuted?

Jess Phillips: Whether it is a prosecutable offence. He lives in America. I, unlike Elon Musk, I’m not going to foray into the American justice system and say that anybody should be in prison.

Cathy Newman: Elon Musk launched his attack after you rebuffed Oldham Council’s request for an inquiry into historical abuse in the town. Do you stand by that decision not to hold an inquiry, despite the fact that Alexis Jay’s inquiry only mentioned Rotherham, for example, once in 468 pages.

Jess Phillips: So first and foremost, I didn’t rebuff their request. What I suggested was that they do an independent local inquiry because I was part of the Telford inquiry. I supported the victims of the Telford inquiry before the inquiry. In fact, for many years before and then during the inquiry. And what I saw happen in Telford, and I thought they should have a national inquiry before, what I saw was a process that put the victims at the heart of it. They led it. It felt completely responsive. But much more important than that is it led to changes. And that’s what I want to see in Oldham. So I didn’t rebuff them having, I said that they should do what Telford had done. Because it’s based on actual experience in the field and actually knowing what changes things and what doesn’t.

Cathy Newman: So what do you say to some of your opponents who have said that you were afraid of offending ethnic minority constituents?

Jess Phillips: What I say to them is that that is deeply offensive. It’s just utter rubbish. The idea that I’m afraid of offending anyone, I’ve offended the richest man on earth. I’m not afraid of offending anyone who is a rapist. I want to see them all taken down and I want to see the people who covered it up, taken down. I don’t need an inquiry to tell me that that is what needs to happen. I already know that.

Cathy Newman: And you’ll implement every one of Alexis Jay’s recommendations as soon as possible?

Jess Phillips: Do you know what I will not do? I will not do what the last government did and just say ‘I’m going to do absolutely everything’, because I’m not going to lie to the victims in our country like they’ve been gaslit and lied to before. I endeavour that every single thing that was found in Alexis Jay’s, and more, will be done by this government to keep children safer. But I’m going to do that along with victims. The idea that I am not going to take any of what has happened seriously, that’s for the last lot. That’s what they did.

Cathy Newman: Talking of the last lot, talking of Conservatives, Robert Jenrick, former leadership contender, said that immigration should be capped for those coming from an and I quote, ‘alien cultures with medieval attitudes towards women’. What do you make of his comments?

Jess Phillips: And what I make of them is that Robert Jenrick wants some attention. Robert Jenrick hopes that he’ll be the leader of the Conservative Party one day. And the thing is that Robert Jenrick has only just started, it took Elon Musk to make Robert Jenrick care about the grooming gangs. It didn’t take that for me, as somebody who has worked on it for years all the time.

Cathy Newman: The Tories say the government has only implemented part of Alexis Jay’s report because Elon Musk has prompted you to do it.

Jess Phillips: Utter rubbish.

Cathy Newman: Alexis Jay has suggested the same herself.

Jess Phillips: But that is utter rubbish, it just was announced because of this furor.

Cathy Newman: You’d likely do it anyway?

Jess Phillips: Of course we were going to do it. I’ve been sat in, oh my gosh, hours of meetings about the specifics of ensuring that people who don’t report child abuse will go to prison.