General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation

Cat Smith Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Today’s timely debate focuses on the important issue of the abuse and intimidation of candidates and the public in UK elections, but I would like to begin with a note of thanks to Mr Deputy Speaker for his support in ensuring my personal safety and that on colleagues on both sides of the House as we go about our business. I know that many of my colleagues will share my thanks and put them on record.

Let me clear: abusive behaviour has no place in our democracy. I must stress that Opposition Members condemn any action that seeks to undermine our tradition of free and fair elections. We welcome the Government’s decision to conduct an independent inquiry, and we look forward to working with them to tackle this issue, which affects candidates from all political parties. In that spirit, my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) is giving evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life this afternoon on behalf of the Labour party.

Sadly, many colleagues on both sides of the House have experienced some form of abuse and intimidation as candidates or MPs, and many can talk about the experiences their party campaigners and volunteers have also had. Unfortunately, candidates and public office holders are vulnerable to abuse. The tragic murder of our parliamentary colleague and friend Jo Cox last year and the stabbing of my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) in 2010 remind us of the serious threats we face and of the longevity of this issue.

We would be doing a disservice to the democracy we all believe in if we did not recognise that this is an issue for all political parties. If we are going to have the honest and constructive debate we need to have on this subject, we must recognise that individuals claiming to be supporters of every political party represented in this Chamber have, either online or offline, abused candidates from other political parties. That is wrong and it will always be wrong, no matter which party the abuser claims to support.

Unfortunately, abuse and intimidation have taken place during previous elections too. Those who claim that this is a recent development are perhaps inadvertently covering up the real issue. This topic is not new to scrutiny. In 2013, the all-party parliamentary group against anti-Semitism, of which I am a member, published the findings of its inquiry into electoral conduct. The inquiry had a particular focus on racism and discrimination in campaigning, and it marked the first time that such matters had been analysed in a systematic way by Members of the House. The APPG published its final update in July, which showed that electoral misconduct was a challenge for all parties during elections.

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Lady is making an important speech, but does she not acknowledge that the tempo and tone of what happened in the 2017 election was of a different order of magnitude from what had gone before? I am quite prepared to accept that what happened was cross-party and affected people on both sides of the House, but it was at a level that was particularly concerning.

[Cat Smith]

I will answer some of those points in my speech. I suspect that what happened was partly due to the increased use of social media sites, which have more users than at previous elections, but I will come to that.

The same inquiry and the Law Commission argue that the current legal system is not fit for purpose. They urged the Government to redraft electoral offences in a more simple and modern way, so that they can be readily understood and enforced by campaigners, the public and the police, and the Opposition would support that.

We must see some action on this issue. The Government’s domestic policy agenda cannot stop because of the Brexit negotiations. In response to a written parliamentary question last week, the Minister stated that the Government will respond to the Law Commission’s 2016 interim report in due course. Can he be a little more specific on the timeframe? The Institute for Jewish Policy Research findings published this week showed that one quarter of British people hold an anti-Semitic belief. Those findings make for sobering reading.

Given the high prevalence of this, it would be foolish and wrong for any party in this House to assume that it did not have members or activists who hold such beliefs. Labour Members recognise that political parties have a responsibility to stamp out any form of abusive behaviour. To ensure that Labour Members comply with the high standards expected by our party, our internal procedures for dealing with abuse and intimidation were reviewed and improved following the Chakrabarti report on anti-Semitism. We have a detailed and publicly available social media policy, and we have employed more staff in our governance and legal unit to make sure that our members’ conduct is up to scratch.

However, social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook must take their share of the responsibility for this issue and act faster to prevent and remove abusive behaviour online. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) pointed out in the Westminster Hall debate on this topic before the summer recess, Facebook was very quick to remove pictures of a woman breastfeeding, but when my hon. Friend reported a fake account that was set up in her name sending out intimidating messages, it took Facebook two weeks to respond.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing up such an important and relevant topic as the racism and anti-Semitism that are going on. I would like to highlight the unacceptable level of vitriol and aggression directed towards female candidates, in particular, during the election. Does she agree that the Government need to do more to ensure that women are not unjustly dissuaded from campaigning, joining in and putting themselves forward as candidates?

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. Only this week, there were reports in the press regarding some rape threats I reported to Facebook that I was told at first did not breach its community standards. It does appear that women MPs face a particular kind of intimidation—threats of rape. Those comments have now been taken down, but I sometimes wonder whether that would have been the case had I not been a Member of Parliament and received some of the press coverage that I did, which has now seen this issue resolved.

Women MPs have been speaking out about these problems with social media for years. MPs and campaigners involved with the women on banknotes campaign were subject to sustained campaigns of harassment in which some members of the public were arrested and charged. Can the Minister assure us that he is working with social media platforms to combat this issue?

There is also a need for better collection and analysis of election-related racism and discrimination data. In March, the Home Office confirmed in an answer to a question that the Government do not hold specific data relating to hate crimes during election campaigns. If the Government are committed to tackling this very important issue, when will they recognise that data on it must be collected and scrutinised? As a consequence of this failing, the monitoring and reporting of racism during elections has fallen to the third sector. New research by Amnesty International found that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who joins me on the Front Bench this afternoon, and who was the first black woman MP in this House, received half of all the threatening tweets sent to women MPs between January and June this year. In fact, black and Asian women MPs received 35% more abusive tweets than white women MPs. As evidenced by the recent report, unacceptable behaviour towards candidates from all parties is disproportionately faced by women and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds.

[Vicky Ford]

It is not just online that abuse is happening, and not just on the Labour side. The Conservative candidate in Ealing reported that two Asian activists on her side received much abuse to their faces. They were spat at, told that they should have their throats slit, threatened by being told they should die and told that their mothers should never have given birth to them. Their cars were also targeted. It is not just online and on social media—there are many face-to-face examples as well.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Lady makes an important and correct point. This abuse is indeed faced by activists and volunteers from all political parties, and candidates and activists from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are indeed disproportionately more likely to face it, both online and offline. I will come to some of the offline comments in a moment.

[Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)]

I heard the point that was made about Ealing. I am not sure whether it concerned the election in Ealing Central and Acton, where I was the winner, but I want to dissociate myself from those stories because they were nothing to do with the Labour party.

I was a candidate in Ealing Central and Acton in the 2015 general election, and there are pictures and footage of the fracas that ensued when I crossed paths with the Conservative canvass team, which included the former Mayor of London, the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson). It was reported on “Newsnight”, and the newspapers called what happened to me “manhandling”; I think a lawyer would call it assault. There are documented examples of such things, and I reject the accusation that this is anything to do with the Labour party.

[Cat Smith]

My hon. Friend raises an alarming example to add to the debate, and I thank her for her contribution.

We cannot allow abuse to act as a barrier to participation in public life. A recent survey revealed that the majority of women MPs have received online and verbal abuse from the public and a third have considered quitting as a result. The 2017 general election delivered the most diverse House of Commons in history, but a failure to tackle abuse and intimidation risks reversing that and rolling back the progress we have made in making our politics more representative.

[Vicky Ford]

I want to clarify that in my earlier intervention I did not accuse Labour activists of being responsible for actions against Conservative activists. My point was that Conservative activists, especially women and those from ethnic minorities, were also seriously targeted, face to face, on the streets of London in the 2017 general election.

[Cat Smith]

The point has been made again that activists and campaigners from all political parties receive abuse. I think that there is consensus on that in the House.

Although the debate is about the general election that has just passed, stalkers and trolls continue to blight the lives of candidates in local elections. Unlike parliamentary candidates, those who stand for local elections are required to have their home address printed on the ballot papers, some of which are sent to the homes of postal voters way ahead of the election. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Jo Platt) is unable to take part in today’s debate, but she particularly wanted to raise this issue. When she was a councillor, she had her home address published on ballot papers and she was forced, in the end, to get CCTV there after receiving abuse and harassment. That is not an isolated case: I am aware of a councillor in Lancashire who, having previously been a victim of stalking, is incredibly uncomfortable with putting her address on the ballot paper. When will the Government review the inconsistency in the publishing of home addresses on ballot papers for candidates in local elections?

[Alison Thewliss]

I fully support the point that the hon. Lady is making. One of my colleagues found it quite frustrating that although they, as a parliamentary candidate, were able to exempt their address from publication, their partner, who happens to be a local government councillor, had to publish their address—thereby negating the whole point.

[Cat Smith]

The hon. Lady raises an alarming and pertinent point. It may leave many of us considering whether to encourage our partners to take part in democratic life, given the threats of abuse that we sometimes face.

We cannot ignore the funding pressures that local authorities are under, because they have an impact on the matter. According to a study by the University of East Anglia, electoral services were running 129% over budget in 2015-16. The Association of Electoral Administrators described the industry as

“Pushed to the absolute limit”

and highlighted significant challenges that electoral officials face, as well as the rising number of administrators leaving the profession. How can we expect electoral officials to identify and deal with abusive behaviour during elections without the necessary resources?

I have been approached by Members of the House who reported online abuse to their local police but found that investigations were cut short because of a lack of police resources. We cannot ignore the growing crisis, which has been alluded to, in police resources for the investigation of these crimes. The Government have cut more than 20,000 police officers, and we have to say that cuts have consequences. The police forces are overstretched, and that leads to pressure to downgrade crimes or to investigate them less than fully. If we really want to tackle this abuse, we need to resource our police budgets properly and give the police the resources that they need to investigate this serious issue.

The bullying and intimidation that we see on social media and on the streets of this country do not happen in a vacuum. The decisions taken by the press and media outlets, and even by political parties, to target some politicians over others can lead trolls to see that as permission to take their racist and sexist abuse offline and, sadly, in some cases to act it out. Only this week, the former Chancellor told colleagues at the Evening Standard that he would not rest until the Prime Minister is

“chopped up in bags in my freezer”.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cat Smith]

I will give way in a moment.

The former Chancellor has previously described the Prime Minister as a

“dead woman walking…on death row”,

and compared her with

“the living dead in a second-rate horror film”.

I raise that because—

[Sir Hugo Swire]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the Opposition spokesman to make unfounded allegations against a former Member of this House, who is not here, without any warning and—to underscore what we are debating—to repeat unfounded allegations that she may or may not have read online or as reported in another paper?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I think the hon. Lady was referring to reports, but I also think she was just about to give way to the right hon. Gentleman.

[Cat Smith]

I clarify that I am referring to the press reports that I read in The Times this morning.

I raise that issue because violence against women is a huge problem in this country. Two women a week are killed by their partner or former partner, and rape continues to be a crime that is under-reported and for which it is very hard to achieve a successful prosecution. We as a House need to acknowledge that the problem we have in this country with violence against women is not helped when senior journalists, commentators or politicians use language such as that I have mentioned when referring to female Members of this House.

As well as the press, political parties and politicians have a responsibility to set an example by treating others with dignity and respect, including those with whom we strongly disagree. If we are to have a useful debate, we must be very honest in looking at the campaigns that our national parties run. I am referring to some of the social media advertising that ends up on voters’ Facebook timelines, often without their permission, highlighting and singling out particular Members of the House. I am referring specifically to the advertisements by the Conservative party that singled out my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington.

[Mrs Latham]

Will the hon. Lady distance herself from the “ditch the bitch” remarks made by the shadow Chancellor about one of our candidates, not at the last election but at the previous one?

[Cat Smith]

I associate myself with the remarks of my party leader, who has been very clear—indeed, he sent out such advice to Labour party candidates during the last election—that we should fight elections on the basis of policies, politics and the record of the Government, not play it personal. With that approach, we can have a debate in public that may influence the debate taking place on social media, and we may see a downturn in the levels of abuse highlighted by Members on both sides of the House.

This abuse does not take place in a vacuum. We must look at the campaign spearheaded by Lynton Crosby in the London mayoral election, which was even described by Baroness Warsi as “appalling”. That was because of the attacks on Sadiq Khan, which are widely understood to have been racist in nature.

[Alex Chalk]

I do not want to inflame this discussion, because the hon. Lady is making some fair points, but does she not agree that there is a duty on all of us to moderate our language in the public sphere? For example, it does not help to use language like the word “murderers” in the context of the Grenfell Tower atrocity, because it revs people up. Is there not a duty on all of us to be careful about what we say in the public domain?

[Cat Smith]

I agree that there is a duty on all Members of this House to be very considered in the language they use in all matters and to talk about policies and politics rather than personalities. Politics has been drifting towards a focus on personalities, and I think that is damaging.

The politics of hope will always win out over the politics of fear, and it played a role in the general election. It was positive that 2.5 million people voted who did not cast a vote in the previous general election, and that gives us a great sense of hope. If we want politics to be more representative, and if we want to encourage a diverse selection of candidates from all political parties to stand, we need to conduct our politics in the spirit of hope.

[Alex Burghart (Brentwood and Ongar) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Cat Smith]

I will in a moment.

The Leader of the Labour party has always said that he does not do personal, and he insisted that all Labour candidates ran positive campaigns based on our policies and the Government’s record, rather than peddling attacks on individuals. He tweeted about that in 2016 and reiterated it in the “Question Time” debate during the general election.

As I said earlier, the Committee on Standards in Public Life is taking evidence this afternoon from three of the major political parties. As part of that inquiry, the Labour party submitted written evidence in which we outlined our support for the idea that political parties and their leaders should agree to a joint code of conduct with a framework for reporting, assessing and disciplining discrimination, racism and any other form of abuse. I hope the Conservative party will work with us to ensure election campaigns are run with dignity and respect for all candidates, and do not depend on highly personal attacks on opponents.

We must see some action on this issue. Abuse and the intimidation of candidates and the public have no place in our elections. I look forward to working with all parties to build a democracy that works for the many, not the few.