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Nigel Farage is “endangering women’s health” by failing to condemn Donald Trump’s claims that using paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism, Bridget Phillipson has said.
The education secretary and minister for women said she had used the painkiller throughout her second pregnancy, and she warned that Reform’s connections with medical conspiracy theories including anti-vaccine rhetoric made the party a danger to public health.
Phillipson is running for Labour deputy leader and has said she wants to use the platform to make a stronger moral argument against Reform, saying Labour needs to “get on the front foot challenging them”.
She said Farage’s unwillingness to repudiate Trump’s comments on autism and paracetamol was wrong. “I couldn’t have got through my second pregnancy without taking paracetamol, and to scaremonger in that way, and to scare women and put lives at risk, I think is really dangerous,” she said.
Reform has also drawn criticism for giving a platform to a cardiologist who suggested the Covid vaccine was linked to King Charles’s cancer. Phillipson said: “Vaccinations have saved the lives of millions of people. They’re [Reform] prepared to go to those fringes and we’ve got to be firmer as a party in taking them on.”
She suggested there had been some frustration that Labour had not come out fighting quickly enough against some of Reform’s controversial announcements over the summer and said that would change.
“We do have to be firmer in our approach,” she said. “And as deputy leader that’s what I’ll do, because I believe the approach we need to take is where the British people are. I don’t think Reform speak for the vast majority of the British people, who abhor prejudice, intolerance and racism.
“We have seen the drift both from Reform and the Conservatives into language which is ever more divisive, that involves an othering of people. I think it’s fundamentally irresponsible for elected politicians to behave in that way.”
Phillipson also said she was unnerved by how Farage and far-right protests were prepared to use women’s safety as an argument against migration. A number of protests over the summer appeared to have women at the forefront outside asylum hotels, including the one in Epping sparked by an incident for which an asylum seeker was later convicted of sexual assault.
“Whenever violence against women occurs, there should be the strongest possible response to it,” Phillipson said. “But what victims don’t need is people seeking to make political opportunism out of their suffering. We need to be clear on calling them out.”
She said Farage’s plan to end indefinite leave to remain, replacing it with rolling visa with a high salary threshold, was another example of a policy that Labour should counter on moral grounds rather than just practicality. “It would rip families apart, would rip communities apart and is frankly disgusting.”
Phillipson faces a major challenge as education secretary over plans to reform the Send system, including potentially scrapping the system of educational care plans under which costs have spiralled while parents still struggle to access adequate help. MPs are deeply concerned about the changes and there have been warnings of a parliamentary battle ahead.
Opposition parties have argued the system is being taken advantage of, with questions raised, particularly locally, over the use of school taxis by disabled children.
Phillipson said she would fiercely resist Send reform becoming a culture war. “It’s deeply upsetting for lots of parents to hear comments from various Reform characters about how their children are badly behaved or their parenting is poor when all they’re trying to do is provide support to their children who have additional needs,” she said.
“We need to get better at support that’s required in order to allow all children to thrive, and that’s why the system isn’t currently delivering.”
Lucy Powell, who is vying with Phillipson for the deputy leadership, issued her own call on Thursday for the party to be more direct in taking on Reform, admitting Labour was struggling with “authenticity and attention”.
She wrote in the Guardian: “We risk losing support by taking progressive voters for granted while failing to articulate a clear and compelling argument to those flirting with Farage that sets out why they would be wrong to put their faith in him.”
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Powell also criticised Farage’s plans on indefinite leave to remain, calling them “a scheme cooked up by a man who is the love child of Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell”.
Phillipson’s campaign has been given a boost by the endorsement of two major trade unions, the GMB and Unison. But polls put her significantly behind Powell, the former House of Commons leader, who is standing on a platform more critical of the leadership.
Phillipson, as the only cabinet minister in the race, has been widely seen as the continuity candidate, a characterisation she rejects.
“It’s a funny old world to be apparently the establishment candidate, given how much of a kicking I’ve taken from the establishment in recent months,” she said, referring to criticism over her school reforms as well as briefings that she would be moved from education secretary.
“Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m my own person. I’m independent-minded, I get things done and I’ll be judged on that basis, not judged through the prism of others,” she said.
Powell has said she would give the role her full-time attention and use the platform to be a constructive critic of the government and represent the voices of ordinary members.
Phillipson said it was possible to also continue as a member of the cabinet, which was how the role had traditionally be done. “No one ever suggested that Angela [Rayner] was a part-timer, or John Prescott or Harriet Harman were part-timers,” she said of past deputy leaders. “They were effective because they had a seat at the table, not throwing stones in public.”
Phillipson has long been talked of as potential future Labour leader but she declined to say explicitly if she thought Labour’s next leader should be a woman.
Asked if she found it frustrating that Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, was tipped so often as a successor to Keir Starmer, she said: “Female politicians, and I’m no different, do get a lot of nonsense. I’ve been underestimated most of my life.”
