Jess Phillips deserves credit for her determination to reduce violence against women - Yorkshire Post Letters

I welcome Jess Phillips’ continued leadership and Labour’s renewed determination to reduce violence against women and girls. For too long, this national emergency has been treated as a series of isolated crimes rather than a systemic failure demanding coordinated action.

Labour’s focus on prevention, early intervention, properly funded support services and meaningful consequences for perpetrators recognises what survivors have always known: this problem cannot be solved with slogans or short-term pilots.

Jess Phillips has been especially important in this debate. Her refusal to sanitise the reality of abuse, her insistence on listening to women with lived experience, and her willingness to challenge complacency, on all sides, have helped move the conversation from sympathy to responsibility. That kind of political courage is rare, and badly needed.

Indeed, her clarity and moral urgency are qualities one might wish were exported. While constitutional realities make it impossible, one is tempted to suggest that the United States could benefit from a President with her forthright commitment to women’s safety, evidence-based policy, and plain speaking.

If nothing else, it highlights how leadership on violence against women should be a global priority, not a partisan one.

We should support those prepared to confront this crisis honestly. Jess Phillips and Labour deserve credit for doing so, and our backing to ensure these plans are delivered in full.