Jess Phillips has retained the seat of Birmingham Yardley, fending off a strong challenge from Jody McIntyre, the candidate for George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain. The Labour MP struggled to deliver her acceptance speech as Workers Party supporters chanted as she spoke. Report by Jonesia. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00I therefore do hereby declare that Phillips, Jessica Rose, known as Jess Phillips, is duly elected as the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Yardley constituency.
00:11Jody! Jody! Jody! Jody! Jody!
00:29We're going to continue with the class that we had during the campaign
00:32Excuse me,
00:37It's alright
00:39The election that I have...
00:45I will carry on with my speech. I understand that a strong woman standing up to you is met with such reticence.
01:03Anyway, this election has been...
01:27This election has been the worst election I have ever stood in.
01:32Today, a brilliant community activist who puts on events for every single part of our community came out to campaign with me.
01:44And people filmed her on the streets and then slashed her tyres.
01:53A young woman, a young woman on her own delivering leaflets was filmed and screamed at by a much older man in the street.
02:08Today, I was to be joined by the family of Jo Cox who wanted to come out and campaign with me.
02:20And there is absolutely no way I could have allowed for them to see what was aggressive and violence in our democracy.
02:35And now, to the positive. Birmingham Yardley gave my family everything that we have.
02:44And today, actually not today, yesterday, was the 13th anniversary of my mother dying.
02:51And my mother was born in Gleneagles Road in Yardley.
02:56And my dad lived in a council house around the corner.
03:00And everything good that they ever had and everything good that my children had, that I had as a child, was provided for us by successive Labour governments.
03:14The greatest honour to my mother today is that we will have a chance not just to be an opposition MP,
03:26but to be somebody who opens things, just doesn't have to campaign just about closing them.
03:32Our country is in desperate, desperate need and our politics is in even greater need of cleaning up.
03:40And I thank everybody in this room for making a really good spectacle of proving that for me.
03:46I'd like to thank the people who work for me so incredibly hard.
03:51To John, to David, to Catherine, to Olivia, to Anna, Apollo and Jane.
03:56And to my amazing activists, Yvette, Zafar and Saqib, who have worked like absolute Trojans in this election.
04:06I'd also like to thank West Midlands Police for the constant phone calls they had to take from me today.
04:11And for their responses to the aggression that we have suffered.
04:16I'd like to thank my husband and my children. I didn't bring my children here tonight because I knew that this would happen and they deserve better.
04:24And I know that a Labour government will provide them with better and they will build a better future for our city.
04:33And just finally, I love that my seat was a marginal seat.
04:41I think marginal seats make better Members of Parliament.
04:46And that is exactly what I have always been and always will be.