Labour MP Jess Phillips just stunned the Tories into silence in 37 seconds
Labour MP Jess Philips launched a seething attack on Boris Johnson and his government, accusing them of being "cowardly" over their treatment of party colleagues who rebelled over Brexit.
Twenty-one Tory rebels, including father of the house Ken Clarke, former chancellor Philip Hammond and Sir Nicholas Soames, the grandson of Winston Churchill, voted against the prime minister on Tuesday night.
The MPs backed a bill aimed at blocking a no-deal Brexit if the prime minister hadn't agreed a plan with the EU ahead of the 31 October deadline.
All 21 rebel MPs had the whip removed as punishment, which means they will be barred from standing for the Tories at the next general election.
Philips rounded on the Tories sitting on the benches opposite her as they listened in silence.
She said:
It’s a shame that quite a lot of the people who are sat in front of me, who know that what has happened over the last two days is wrong, are too cowardly to actually say to me in here, in public, what they’re all saying in the tea rooms. You know what has happened over here.
It’s as if we [Labour] were kicking out Harriet Harman. That is what it feels like. It is an abomination the way your party has behaved.
You’ve all crowed and given sympathy to me about the problems that we have in the Labour Party and you’ve just say by, silently, while your colleagues have been marched out.’
In the same speech, Philips also accused Johnson of "bully boy" tactics, saying she had "no faith in anything that the current prime minister says".
She added:
I have absolutely no fear that I would hold my seat in an election.
The prime minister that we have at the moment is playing some bully-boy game of some bully-boy public school that I probably won’t understand anymore than I understand parliamentary procedures.
Many praised the Labour MP for highlighting the "cowardice" and "hypocrisy" of the Tory Party:
Boris Johnson faced a double defeat in the Commons by the end of the Tuesday, after MPs turned down his motion for a general election.
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