Who Tolerates Abuse of MPs?
| Published date | 01 September 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058241282460 |
| Author | Sarah Shair-Rosenfield,Robert Johns,Reed M. Wood,Graeme A.M. Davies |
| Date | 01 September 2024 |
34POLITICAL INSIGHT•SEPTEMBER 2024
Some days … you just think: ‘Why
do I do this? Why do I bother?’ …
and people who are thinking about
putting themselves forward think,
‘Well, do I want to open myself up to
this?’ It’s corrosive to our democracy.
Anonymous female Labour candidate
for MP as reported in The Guardian on
14 June 2024
Immediately following the July 2024
General Election, MPs, candidates,
and government advisors collectively
raised the alarm about the
pervasiveness of threats and targeting
against British politicians. Labour MP
Rushanara Ali spoke publicly of needing
police protection during her re-election
campaign. Others voiced their concerns off
the record. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper
said that there had been ‘disgraceful’ scenes
in some areas in the run-up to polling
day and announced that she would be
reconvening the Defending Democracy
taskforce to consider how the UK
government should address this issue.
The problem of threats against politicians
is not new. But evidence strongly suggests
Who Tolerates
Abuse of MPs?
Concerns about threats to politicians have been growing. But what
is the public’s view of abuse and intimidation directed at MPs? Sarah
Shair-Rosenfield, Robert Johns, Reed M. Wood, and Graeme A.M. Davies
report on new research that found some surprisingly upbeat results.
that it is becoming more widespread
(Collignon et al., 2021; Inter-Parliamentary
Union, 2023). The murders of MPs Jo Cox
and David Amess, not to mention the
attempted assassination of America’s
Donald Trump at a presidential campaign
rally in July this year, made shockingly clear
that these threats cannot be treated as idle.
But what is the public’s view of threats
against MPs? The data is oddly scarce
considering the extent of concern raised
by campaign groups and politicians.
The problem can be interpreted as a
breakdown of a public norm against
violence, but is there evidence that that
norm has indeed been eroded? On the
one hand, even a behaviour as relatively
innocuous as milkshake-throwing was
widely condemned in a 2019 survey (Ford,
2019). On the other, there has been a well-
© NorthScape / Alamy Stock Photo
Political Insight September 2024 BU.indd 34Political Insight September 2024 BU.indd 3421/08/2024 16:2321/08/2024 16:23
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