For the sake of the affected individuals and democracy as a whole, the abuse targeting MPs and candidates that has become commonplace on platforms must stop, according to a report by members of Parliament.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, Speaker of the House of Commons and Chair of the Speaker’s Conference said: “Standing for election and representing your community is something anyone should be able to aspire to. But the current climate of toxic political discourse is having a corrosive effect on our democracy, and is discouraging people from participating in our democratic process. The perception that it is acceptable to abuse public figures must end.
“The Speaker’s Conference report makes clear recommendations to Government, the police, the media and wider civil society on how we can uphold freedom of speech and ensure accountability, while reducing threats and ensuring greater security for candidates, MPs and our democratic institutions.
“The onus is on all of us to moderate political discourse and ensure it does not cross the line into abuse, intimidation or violence. I will continue to work with all relevant groups to protect and defend our democracy.”
Social media
As for online abuse, the report noted that the Online Safety Act 2023 ‘has the potential to deal with many of the issues of online threats to MPs and candidates that we have identified. In particular, it could force platforms to properly resource their content moderation teams, remove illegal content’. However, the report added that it ‘will depend on how it is implemented’. The MPs further added that ‘it is unlikely that this is the last legislation Government will need to pass on social media regulation’. Among the themes of the report was the abuse against female candidates and politicians, in the real world and online; such as disinformation online and in particular ‘the use of generative AI to create deepfake pornography targeting female MPs and candidates’. The vast majority of abuse faced by MPs occurs online, particularly on Facebook and X. “The small steps Meta and X have taken to equip users with tools to shield themselves for abuse do little to tackle the root of the issue,” the report concluded.
Real world
The report noted repeatedly that comments and behaviours by a minority might be ‘legal but harmful’; though not criminal, yet are harmful to an individual and democracy as a whole, ‘because they reduce the willingness of people, particularly those in underrepresented groups, to stand for office’. Next year the Electoral Commission and politicians are ‘to define a collectively agreed set of principles to guide behaviours and language when campaigning’. This second report followed an earlier one that called for ‘courtesy and respect in our politics’. Both reports noted that police investigations into allegations of crimes against MPs and candidates ‘suffer from significant inconsistency’ in the way forces, and officers, deal with them. The report calls on the press to ‘end journalistic practices like doorstepping at homes that are themselves intimidating’.
About the committee
The committee heard evidence between February and September from the main political parties; the Electoral Commission; academics, police, ministers such as the Home Office security minister Dan Jarvis, and Alison Giles and Oliver Davis, Director and Deputy Director respectively of the Parliamentary Security Department. Among the written submissions was from the social media platform X (previously Twitter) which stated that as of March 2025, X had 1,486 people working worldwide on content moderation, and has about 500 million posts made on X worldwide daily. X’s target and average times for making a decision on whether or not to remove a potentially abusive post were not ‘readily available’ for the UK specifically, the platform said. The cross-party committee was set up in October 2024, to consider the ‘factors influencing the threat levels against candidates and MPs and the effectiveness of the response to such threats’. Its members included former Labour then Conservative now Reform Party MP Lee Anderson, who was told by a parliamentary panel in November 2024 to apologise for swearing at a Palace of Westminster security officer, who the MP ‘verbally insulted’.
For the report, visit the Parliament UK website.
Comment
Matt Boughton, the Conservative leader of Tonbridge and Malling borough council in Kent, is chair of the Local Government Association (LGA) Stronger and Safer Communities Committee. He said: “Being at the receiving end of online abuse, intimidation and harassment has become a part of life for too many elected politicians and candidates. Increasingly, this is the case at every level of political life. The LGA’s research has found that nearly two-thirds of councillors have experienced abuse online and that the experience is causing many people to reconsider whether to stand for election or re-election.
“This important report further shines a light on the extent of online abuse of elected politicians, and the impact this is having on our democratic processes. Too many councillors and candidates, faced with online abuse, have found the major social media platforms to be unresponsive, uninterested or slow to react, even in severe cases. This needs to change, and we support the Conference’s call for consistency and speed in dealing with illegal and inciteful content targeting public figures.”
Separately, the Local Government Associations which represent England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales issued a joint statement on the importance of civility in public life.
