It’s the thing every MP fears, but it is increasingly becoming an occupational hazard: the brick hurled at the office window, the rape and death threats that arrive in the post, angry voices abusing you, your staff or your family, both on and offline. In recent years, I’ve experienced all of these things, and I know I’m not alone. Public life is drowning in hate, and violence and harassment towards political representatives is increasingly being normalised. Unless we take responsibility for addressing this, the outcome will not simply be that the loudest voices and largest wallets win: democracy will lose.
Every MP has not just the shadow of the deaths of our beloved friends David Amess and Jo Cox looming in our thoughts, but also knowledge of the day-to-day violence our colleagues experience. I don’t need to agree with Tobias Ellwood or Mike Freer on policy to know that a line has been crossed when their private addresses and constituency offices have been targeted – and they are not alone. As campaign groups seek to be heard, they are taking ever more incendiary directions. Just Stop Oil stated to the Guardian that it would challenge MPs “at their homes”, and protests over Gaza have happened outside MPs’ houses, with protesters daubing constituency offices with red paint.
