General Election Campaign: Abuse and Intimidation

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I am grateful to my hon. and gallant Friend for sharing with the House such a personal and deeply upsetting and troubling incident that has happened to his son. That is simply unacceptable. It is a noble thing to stand for election; and it is a noble thing to want to represent your community, whether as a councillor or as an MP in this place. People such as teachers who are in a position of authority and influence should be supporting and upholding the shared values of our country. It is most disappointing to hear of somebody in such a powerful and influential position letting themselves and their profession down.

The Government are absolutely clear that this abusive and threatening behaviour that we are increasingly seeing online is totally unacceptable—whoever the target.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we should be particularly concerned about those who are vulnerable? I have in mind the case of one of my Conservative colleagues who stood in the east of England. She was threatened with rape online. Then the threat was, “Shoot her, then pull her teeth out of her jaw while she fades away.” The said candidate is partially sighted and was going around the constituency every day with her dog. It is exactly those sorts of people whom we should encourage to be in this House, which is why those of us who are here must stand up and defend them.

[Sarah Newton]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for sharing that experience. She is absolutely right: it is essential that people from every sort of background and from every part of our country feel that they can represent their communities. The Conservative party has put in a lot of effort over a number of years to break down the barriers so that people with disabilities can serve their communities locally or nationally. I was very proud of our party for setting up a new fund in the Cabinet Office, which provides funding to people who need to make reasonable adjustments to stand for office and to serve their community. I hope that my hon. Friend will pass on to that candidate our sincere gratitude for her perseverance—not being bullied or intimidated, but carrying on and taking a message of hope to her community. I encourage her to report that incident to the police. She has clear online evidence of hate crime perpetrated against her, and I would fully expect her local constabulary to take that seriously and go after the appalling person who wrote such things.

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[Sarah Newton]

There must be consequences for perpetrators of hate crime and the list of crimes that I have outlined. It is essential that people report, so that the police can take the appropriate action and people feel that there are consequences for the crimes they commit.

[Vicky Ford]

I just want to go back to the case I mentioned earlier of the partially sighted candidate who was threatened with rape, among other threats. My hon. Friend suggested that the candidate should ensure that the police were aware of the situation. One of the advantages of today’s media is that I have since been in contact with her. She said that the police were notified but, when asked again, they said that they had not received a notification of the crime being reported. I understand that it was an intense period for the police, but does my hon. Friend think we may need better guidelines for how they should react?

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for that further intervention, and I am disappointed to hear that that was her constituent’s experience. As part of the hate crime action plan, further guidance was given. My colleagues in the Home Office work closely with law enforcement and the College of Policing to make sure frontline police officers have the tools and skills necessary. We hope that the HMIC inspection of the police response to hate crime will highlight good practice, which I am sure does exist around the country, but if there are areas for improvement, that will also be highlighted, and we will review the findings of that inspection with our colleagues in law enforcement to see whether there is anything further we need to do.

Sadly, it is not only MPs and candidates who are experiencing intimidation. The intimidation of voters during election campaigns is unacceptable and must also be addressed. Sir Eric Pickles’s review of electoral fraud made a range of recommendations for tightening up on the integrity of our electoral system, including by addressing the intimidation of voters. The review identified a number of areas in which the existing rules at elections could be tightened. In particular, it recommended that greater powers should be given to returning officers and the police to take action to address unwanted and inappropriate behaviour in and around polling stations—for example, by setting up cordons sanitaires.

In the Government’s response to Sir Eric’s report, we indicated that we are supportive of those proposed changes. Some will require primary legislation, and we look forward to bringing the provisions forward as soon as the opportunity arises. We will also consider with the Electoral Commission how existing guidance to returning officers and their staff must be strengthened.

In conclusion, I want to make it absolutely clear that the targeting of abusive, intimidating or harassing behaviours at any individual—whether an MP, a candidate, a member of their staff or family, or a member of the public—is utterly unacceptable. There is simply no place in our democracy for these behaviours.

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[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.

[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?

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[Patrick Grady]

I think a consensus is emerging on that. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) drew attention to the anomaly whereby, although one of our colleagues was able to anonymise their address on the ballot, their partner was standing for the council and therefore had to publish the address, which completely negated the arrangement.

[Vicky Ford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Patrick Grady]

I am a little bit conscious of others wishing to speak, but I will.

[Vicky Ford]

I just wanted to say something about anonymising addresses, or not making them public. When I stood for election, I did not make my address public, partly because of threats that I had received during my time working on international gun laws—threats from people who have guns. The difficulty was, however, that those who make themselves anonymous can be accused, politically, of trying to be anonymous when others are not. I suggest to the Minister that there should be one rule for all, so that the council and the election officers know where people are, but need not make the information public.

[Patrick Grady]

As I have said, I think a degree of consensus is emerging on that point. Perhaps the Minister will address it when he sums up the debate.

I want to stress what Tasmina had to go through. She was subjected to language that I will not repeat in the Chamber because it would be unparliamentary, although it is not unparliamentary when it comes from the President of the United States; let us put it like that. It is simply unacceptable. Tasmina and others in this House have stood their ground and called out the abuse, and continue to fight for what they believe in. That is an example of courageous leadership for others to follow, but it still takes that leap of faith—that act of courage. For someone in the early stages of considering a political career, who is unsure, the possibility of that abuse and intimidation might prove one hurdle too high.

What can be done? We welcome the review being conducted by the Committee on Standards in Public Life; I am pretty certain we are making a contribution to it, and we look forward to its report. We have to, as others have said, make sure that the police and the regulatory bodies have the powers and resources they need properly to investigate abuse and bring those responsible for criminal wrongdoing to justice. I echo the calls for the social media companies to up their game; they must get better at monitoring and acting on reports, and weeding out abusers early on, as several Members have pointed out. I also echo the Minister’s points about education, especially in schools, and making sure that good habits are formed early, and that there is an understanding of active citizenship and positive engagement with democracy, so that a new generation can come forward.

We have touched on some of the practical issues to do with keeping people’s personal circumstances secure, and addresses on the ballot paper. Finally, I want to emphasise that we have to lead by example. We have to win the debate. We have to make sure that our conduct—in this place, in our constituencies, and especially online—is exemplary. Of course we should engage in robust debate, but we should do so with good humour and with respect for the opinions held by our opponents, no matter how much we might disagree with them.

That any of us are standing here today, no matter what party we are from, is in some way a victory for democratic values and the principles of freedom of speech, but we must use that victory, whatever side we are from, carefully and responsibly. We are all passing through this Chamber; one day, all of us will lose or retire, and someone else will take our place. If we want to make sure we are replaced by the brightest and the best—by people who truly represent the full spectrum of diversity in our society, and who will continue to champion democracy and freedom of speech—we must live up to the highest standards ourselves. Hopefully, by these actions, we can ensure that democracy endures, and that the haters and abusers are not allowed to win.