PM calls on Corbyn to condemn abuse and bullying of MPs
THERESA May vowed to stamp out the abuse of MPs yesterday after saying she was shocked at tales of intimidation and bullying during the election.
The Prime Minister gave her strongest indication yet that she will take action as it emerged that Facebook has repeatedly failed to remove abusive content reported by Tory MPs.
Speaking at the G20 in Hamburg, she said there was ‘no place in our democracy’ for the harassment of parliamentary candidates.
In an apparent swipe at Jeremy Corbyn, whose fans have been blamed for much of the harassment, she urged all party leaders to condemn the abuse.
Mrs May said: ‘I’ve been absolutely shocked at the number of colleagues who have talked to me about intimidation and harassment, about bullying during the election campaign.
‘There can be no place in our democracy for behaviour like that. I’m determined to stamp it out. To do that we need all party leaders to condemn this bullying, harassment and intimidation.’
Earlier this week, Mrs May discussed the issue with the Cabinet after Tory MP Sheryll Murray spoke out in Prime Minister’s Questions to detail the abuse she has suffered.
The South East Cornwall MP poured scorn on Mr Corbyn’s call for ‘kinder politics’ after her campaign posters were defaced with swastikas and thugs wrote ‘burn the witch’ online.
The widow said women in particular had become the target of abuse as she described how a man urinated on her office door and swore at a security camera.
She also said Facebook had refused to remove a page set up to troll her which hosts a photo of women showing their bottoms outside her office. The page was still up yesterday.
Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, whose Totnes office was defaced with insults by a masked man, said this week: ‘I do feel Jeremy Corbyn has got to stop just talk- ing about a kinder politics and make sure that is a message that gets through to some of his members on the far-Left.’
Antoinette Sandbach, Tory MP for Eddisbury in Cheshire, reported a Facebook comment in which someone called her an ‘odious selfserving Tory b****... just f*** off and die’. The comment was still online yesterday.
Former Tory MP for Lincoln Karl McCartney said he had complained about fake Facebook pages being set up in his name with abusive comments.
Facebook would not take down some pages because ‘they didn’t have bad language’, he said.
He also said that 130 of his posters were ripped down and some were found in a skip.
As a result of the abuse, he had to have panic buttons installed in his house and was forced to move home.
Fellow Tory Nadine Dorries’s posters were daubed with swastikas and some were torn down within 48 hours of going up.
After being bombarded with abuse online, the MP for Mid Bedfordshire said she had been forced to block more than a thousand people.
She said she had reported hundreds of comments to Facebook but had given up after the website failed to respond.
Other Tories to speak out about abuse include Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith and Mims Davies, MP for Eastleigh.
Facebook has been in the dock over its refusal to remove abusive and offensive posts, including hate speech.
A spokesman said: ‘There is no place on Facebook for trolling, bullying or harassment.’
The company said it had a ‘comprehensive reporting system’ in place to flag abuse.
‘Stop talking about a kinder politics’