Elected Women Representatives: Online Abuse

Jane Stevenson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jane Stevenson (Wolverhampton North East) (Con) [V]]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for securing the debate.

Since my election in December 2019, I have seen horrific abuse of colleagues of both genders, but I have been especially disturbed by the nature of the abuse targeted at my female colleagues. We need to separate the standard political online abuse from the sort of messages that are aimed specifically at women, typically involving threats of sexual violence or insults about their physical appearance, or questioning whether they should be in politics at all because they may want to have children or because of their other family circumstances.

Sadly, it is not just in the UK that female representative face such abuse. A quick bit of internet research shows the extent of abuse faced by female colleagues around the world. I spent a thoroughly depressing evening reading all about it in numerous articles from Canada, Kenya, Finland, the USA, India, Chile and Japan—every single country that I could think of. A study by the National University of Ireland in Galway last year found that 96% of female politicians in the Republic of Ireland had faced online abuse. Shockingly, 40% of those interviewed reported being threatened with sexual violence as part of that abuse.

Study after study shows that such abuse puts decent, community-minded people off politics. I speak to those people regularly. If I meet a fantastic community activist, I will ask them why they do not think about standing as a councillor or Member of Parliament. The abuse is raised as one of the main reasons that they do not step forward. I have faced abuse. I am sure that we all have our little mantras that we repeat. In order for someone to upset me I have to respect their opinion, which wipes out a lot of the abuse, but we all have bad days when we are exhausted and it is difficult to brush it off. Sadly, many women leave politics, and cite the abuse that they have received as the reason.

Another result of the abuse is that it makes politicians more distant from the people we represent. Many people are leaving social media platforms. Social media should and could be a brilliant way to keep people informed and engaged with their community, but I fear that without further action we will have less engaged politicians. What more can social media providers do? I do not support a blanket ban on anonymity. Online anonymity is sometimes very valuable, if someone is seeking help for a highly sensitive matter or is a victim of domestic abuse.

However, perhaps we need better tailoring of regulations, filters and the ability to block, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) referred to. That could go with the blue tick. Perhaps people interacting with verified accounts could have a filter button, to turn them on and off. Perhaps lowering the temperature for public figures will improve the internet for all users, because nobody should face the sort of abuse that we all face very regularly.

This debate should send a message from all parties in Parliament to our colleagues around the world and to those involved, and wanting to get involved, in politics. It was lovely that recently the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) was defended from all corners of the House when faced with a horrific episode of abuse. When all of us call abuse out, especially when it is to Opposition colleagues, that sends a powerful message that we will not tolerate it. We can all do our bit to defend our colleagues in every corner of politics.