LABOUR backbencher Jess Phillips has confirmed her bid to succeed Jeremy Corbyn with a call to elect "a different kind of leader".
The Birmingham Yardley MP warned on Friday that the party will see more crushing defeats like the last General Election if it does not recognise politics has changed in a "fundamental way".
The long-term Corbyn critic also warned that Labour are in "big trouble" if it cannot win back the trust of its working-class base.
Phillips became the third candidate to formally announce their bid to lead the party after it suffered its worst UK election since 1935.
In a statement, the Remain-backing MP warned that voters have lost trust in the Labour Party and stressed the need for the Prime Minister to be challenged with "passion, heart and precision".
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Among her criticisms of the current leadership were the "woeful response" to antisemitism within the party's ranks and for Corbyn's ambiguity on Brexit.
"We have got to be brave and bold and bring people with us, not try and look all ways. Trying to please everyone usually means we have pleased no one," she said.
"Now is not the time to be meek. Boris Johnson needs to be challenged, with passion, heart and precision. We can beat him. We need to speak to people's hearts, and people need to believe we really mean it when we do.
"Now is not the time to play it safe. What I've heard so far in this debate is totally inadequate to the scale of the problem. Voters have changed.
"We need to recognise that politics has changed in a fundamental way by electing a different kind of leader. More of the same will lead to more of the same result."
I’m standing to be the next Labour Leader. Politics needs honest voices. Only when we are honest again, with ourselves & with the country, will we become the people who get to make the decisions. I can’t do this alone. Join me to help make things better at https://t.co/BCJG9DjidP pic.twitter.com/nhVxGSF5ml
— Jess Phillips MP (@jessphillips) January 3, 2020
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The MP, who supported victims of domestic abuse for Women's Aid before entering Parliament in 2015, said only "when we are clear and straightforward" will voters again back Labour.
"We're a party named after the working class who has lost huge parts of its working-class base. Unless we address that, we are in big trouble," she added.
Tomorrow she will meet with former Labour voters in the Bury North constituency which the party lost to the Tories.
Phillips also announced her candidacy on social media with a video in which she visited the North Wales constituency of Delyn that Labour lost to the Tories for the first time since 1987.
She joins shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and shadow treasury minister Clive Lewis as those to have formally declared their bids.
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Others are also expected to announce their intentions soon, with shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer, close Corbyn ally Rebecca Long-Bailey and Wigan MP Lisa Nandy considering challenges.
Phillips would appear to be a relatively popular choice with the Labour members who will help select the leader.
She came third in a YouGov survey of the membership behind both Starmer and shadow business secretary Long-Bailey.
Starmer would beat Long-Bailey, who is the favoured candidate of key figures in the current leadership, in a run-off 61% to 39%, according to the early survey.
But the other candidates will be hoping to boost their profiles with the race not expected to formally get under way until Tuesday and a new leader not expected until the end of March.
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