Katharine Birbalsingh (Image: Getty)
The UK’s strictest headteacher today launched a brutal tirade on Labour MP Jess Phillips, accusing her of being “racist”, “bullying” and encouraging a “vicious mob attack” on her in a jaw-dropping Twitter spat sparked by the death of music icon Tina Turner. Founder and headmistress of Michaela Community free school in London, Katharine Birbalsingh, posted an eyebrow-raising open letter to Sir Keir Starmer in which she made a slew of claims about the Midlands MP.
The war of wards began in May in the wake of the death of pop legend Tina Turner.
Ms Birbalsingh, who recently spoke at the National Conservatism conference, described the singer as “’an iconic black voice of the 1980s” and posted a gif consisting of “different clips from her life” with the caption “good times”.
However the teacher was the subject of a backlash as the social media post featured a picture of her with Ike Turner, Tina’s abusive ex-husband.
The Labour MP shared the tweet, which she later deleted, and wrote: “Hold the line! Stay with me! Domestic abuse is never ok and we will defeat those who prop up the status quo. I repeat Hold the line! Stay with me! We will win.”
Katharine Birbalsingh has written a bombshell letter to Keir Starmer (Image: GETTY)
“Hold the line” is a phrase from the 2000 film Gladiator and featured in Ms Birbalsingh’s National Conservatism conference speech.
Ms Birbalsingh said that she did not condone domestic violence in a follow-up tweet, to which Ms Phillips, who is the Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding, replied “sure” and used a “sarcastic” gif, according to the headteacher.
In a later post, the MP and mother-of-two wrote: “I’m courageous enough to tweet under my own name. Seems that far from holding any kind of line that headteacher woman seems not to be able to take criticism of her actions. I’d be keen to hear of domestic abuse policies she has in her school or teaching plans, perhaps I’ll write.”
In the wake of the row, Ms Birbalsingh has claimed she has suffered a “deluge of Twitter abuse” and says parents have contacted the school to demand her dismissal.
Jess Phillips (right) has been accused of being ‘racist’ (Image: Getty)
In a bombshell open letter to Sir Keir Starmer, the teacher wrote: “I want to bring to your attention what I believe to be racist and bullying behaviour from one of your Shadow team.
“She inspired a vicious mob attack against me on Twitter on the evening of May 24, 2023, and called into question my school’s safeguarding policies in a deliberate attempt to challenge my competence as Headteacher.”
She went on: “My view is that Ms Phillips’ extreme and unprompted hostility towards me is motivated by my race.
“By this I do not mean that she hates all people of colour. Her behaviour is a clear example of ‘unconscious bias’.
Sir Keir Starmer has received the open letter from the headteacher (Image: Getty)
“I mean that she hates me, despite not knowing me, because she subscribes to the idea that Black and Asian individuals in public life owe a duty to voice opinions that match with a left-wing view of the world, or they are worthy of her contempt.”
Ms Birbalsingh went on to say she was in the process of submitting a formal complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commmissioner about Ms Phillips’ tweets, claiming they contravened of the Code of Conduct.
The head wrote: “Allow me to be candid: how dare she?
“How dare she possibly tell me after 25 years of working in schools, with the people I have known, in the inner-city areas I have worked, that I am an advocate of domestic abuse.”
The letter then addressed Ms Birbalsingh’s “light skin”. She that despite having a black Jamaican mother and an Indo-Guyanese father, her skin tone the result of masters raping their slaves.
She said: “I am therefore aware in my very bones of what some women suffer.
“I am livid that Jess Phillips’ behaviour towards me trivialises the unspeakable horrors my great great grandmothers endured. Ms Phillips does not own this issue and she does not own us black women.
“I would also add that in Ms Phillips’ contempt for me, she refuses to call me by my name. Perhaps this makes me seems sensitive. My name is part of my identity and if she wishes to disagree with me, she should have the respect to address me by my name. White people took our names in slavery times and imposed new ones.”
Her statement also said: “She holds me in contempt for being a black woman who does not bend the knee and consider her master, and instead I commit the atrocious crime of expressing views for myself.”
