MPs set to question Corbyn on sex industry comments

Jeremy Corbyn is expected to face a grilling from backbenchers at the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meeting tonight.

He is expected to take questions from Labour MPs after leaving early last week to week to appear on The Agenda and failed to turn up the week before despite promises to do so.

Corbyn will be expecting questions on the sex industry following his comments in which he said he supported decriminalisation.

The Labour leader said on Friday he wanted a “more civilised” approach to sex work in which we “don’t automatically criminalise” people.

The debate concerns whether or not women would be safer if those who buy sex are criminalised. The women’s lobby is almost unanimously against decriminalisation of clients.

Labour MPs including Jess Phillips, Caroline Flint and Harriet Harman have spoken out against Corbyn’s comments.

Jess Phillips has called prostitution a “known violence against women”. The Birmingham Yardley MP formerly worked for Women’s Aid, a charity that campaigns against violence against women, and has accused the Labour leadership of sexism, calling Corbyn’s failure to appoint any women to any top office “low-level non-violence misogyny”.

Phillips has also attracted attention from her interview in the Observer yesterday in which, when asked whether Labour would win in 2020, she said “no, absolutely not”.