Rees-Mogg: Bridget Phillipson is positioning herself to take over from Starmer

Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested Bridget Phillipson is positioning herself to contest the leadership of the Labour Party.

Speaking on GB News, he said: “Are the jackals surrounding the Prime Minister? Are people getting ready for a leadership putsch? And who should we be thinking about?

“A lot of discussion has been around Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband and one or two others. What about Bridget Phillipson?

“Because she seems to be expressing those left-wing views that are ever popular with some of the members of the Labour Party who make up the electorate.

“So there’s this very permissive view about let boys wear dresses and so on and so forth, appealing to the left. Let’s muddle children about who they are; let’s not be clear that there are just two genders. There are men and women.

“And then, when you have the report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission setting out what government policy should be, delay, vacillate, postpone, don’t put it out early. Just wait.

“And reports then say that the tone has been softened to make it more inclusive, that favourite buzzword of the socialist. So in this area, on the social area, she’s very much positioning herself on the hard left.

“But then she’s doing the same with education. She’s anti free schools. She’s anti academies. She’s made it harder to set up free schools. She’s stopped some of them that were about to go ahead from happening.

“She doesn’t really like parent power, and she seems to want to dumb down the curriculum. On top of that, 20% VAT on school fees for people using private education.

“All of this actually harmful to the education of our children.

“So what you see that she’s been doing is showing some red meat to the left, red in tooth and claw meat, you might say, and I think therefore positioning herself for the campaign that is going to come against Sir Keir Starmer.

“Why? Because he’s taken Labour to such low levels in the opinion polls. He’s seen as somebody who can’t make his mind up, who U-turns on a pretty much daily basis.

“And that leaves her in a position where, if Angela Rayner can’t do it because of her tax affairs, if Ed Miliband can’t do it because the green issue isn’t working. If the man up in Manchester can’t do it because he’s not a member of parliament, on and on it goes.

“The other candidates fall by the wayside, and there, at the beginning of the cricket season, standing in the slips is Bridget Phillipson waiting for a little nibble. So it could be her and you heard it here first.”