Jess Phillips apologises for tweet that ‘justified’ masked men’s intimidation of journalists

Jess Phillips has tendered an apology after she was said to justify the conduct of masked agitators who interrupted a live feed during the riots. 
 
Last week the safeguarding minister attracted controversy by effectively “explaining” the behaviours of the men, one of whom seemed to be brandishing a baseball bat. 
 
Some 300 Muslims encircled one mosque for the same reason after threats of Right-wing violence. 
 
A man on a motor bike with three others trailing began a chase with a Sky reporter in Birmingham and the channel had to switch away from the scene. 
 
The footage was criticized by Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform as an example of ‘two-tier policing’, only for Ms Phillips to seem to justify the presence of the men. 
 
”These people came to this location because it has been spread that racists were coming to attack them,” she said. “All of this was done with the purpose of creating this content,” the art critic said, urging Mr Tice not to share it. 

She said things that led to criticism, which included a call for her removal by James Cleverly who was the shadow home secretary and Lee Anderson the Reform MP. 
 
Reflecting on her comments on Wednesday, Ms Phillips told Sky News: “Well, of course I would be more cautious with the words I use [in the future]. I am more than willing to testify that I am not afraid of affirming when I am wrong. Absolutely. 
 
I was attempting to bring out the notion that the people who had assembled were assembled by the spread of falsehood. 
 
Ms Phillips said that although she knows that she ‘could have been a bit smarter,’ she was all the day with the chief constable of the area who works so hard to reduce tensions. 
 
In an interview, the Home Office added even more to the conversation: “I was explaining why those people have gone, and that’s because of a campaign of misinformation about far-Right protests,” the minister said. 
 
The channel’s television crew which was headed by Sky News reporter Becky Johnson was harassed by the men to the extent that she had to stop her live broadcast. After that, a man armed with a knife followed the television crew and punctured the tyres of the broadcast van. 
 
But, the apology followed remarks made by Tom Tugendhat, who is in the running with Mr Cleverly for the leadership of the Tory party, that Sir Keir Starmer was weak in failing to dismiss Ms Phillips. 
 
On Tuesday this week, Ms Phillips said that she would be tempering her use of X, which is now Twitter, the Musk owned social media platform over disinformation about the recent riots. 
 
However, she said the under operation of Mr Musk the platform has been reduced to a ‘place of misery’, whilst he has ranted on free speech and time and again criticised Sir Keir for handling of the unrest.