Yvette Cooper: Online trolls have threatened to behead me
YVETTE COOPER, the Labour former Cabinet minister, today reveals how she has been subjected to death threats online, with one abuser telling her she should be “beheaded”.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Cooper says it is an example of the increasingly vicious internet abuse that Labour MPs suffer.
Jeremy Corbyn, who was last night re-elected as party leader by another landslide, was accused of failing to stop bullying and abuse by a minority of members, despite being warned about it a year ago.
Although not from a Labour Party member, the beheading threat illustrates the growing problem of online abuse, which Ms Cooper says Mr Corbyn must now address.
The row threatens to escalate into
Mr Corbyn’s first major challenge since defeating Owen Smith to retain the Labour leadership. A Jewish Labour peer is expected to quit the party over Mr Corbyn’s alleged failure to stamp out anti-Semitism.
The latest row erupted within hours of Mr Corbyn winning the leadership contest by a landslide for the second year. He won 62 per cent of more than 500,000 member votes, to his challenger’s 38 per cent.
In her article, Ms Cooper issues a rebuke to Mr Corbyn for failing to stem a tide of online abuse and harassment.
“Jeremy Corbyn has rightly condemned abuse many times,” she says. “But when you are the leader of a party with a problem, especially when you have just been re-elected, you should use your authority to deliver action, not just words. The worst I get as a Labour MP is usually from the far-Right. Recent grim tweets include an Australian who wants to behead me, and a Trump supporter who hates refugees.
“But no matter where it is from, abuse and intimidation entrench prejudice, silence debate and poison democracy. Even a small minority can drag everyone else down.”
The former minister details the shocking extent of online abuse facing female Labour MPs from a “minority” of party supporters, as she warns that Mr Corbyn has failed to stop racists, sexists and bullies despite being warned of the problem a year ago.
She demands Mr Corbyn and John McDonnell, his shadow chancellor and ally, support Labour staff when they try to tackle abuse. Anyone found to be persistently abusing or harassing Labour MPs or staff online must be expelled from the party, she says.
“One Labour member asked me why I was calling on Jeremy to do all of this. Because he is the leader. And because he can. Don’t just leave it to me to propose new party rules – take a lead,” she says. In her article, Ms Cooper also demands Mr Corbyn personally oppose the Facebook campaigns by his supporters who are calling for moderate Labour MPs to be deselected.
Her comments came after Labour staff attending the annual conference in Liverpool were warned that crowds could turn violent after the leadership election result. No major trouble was reported, but raucous scenes at a rally held by Momentum, the movement that supports Mr Corbyn, included cat calls directed at Mr Smith, and posters declaring “Kick out the Blairites”.
Just hours after he was re-elected, Mr Corbyn refused to rein in the activists threatening to mobilise campaigns to deselect moderate MPs.
Last night, several warned that the party would never win an election unless it had a leader who can “stamp out abuse” in the party.
In his victory speech, at the conference in Liverpool, Mr Corbyn promised he would work to unite the party and condemned Twitter “trolls” who abuse their opponents online. “We’re not afraid to discuss openly, to debate and disagree,” Mr Corbyn said. “Our party has a duty of care to our members. That means intervening to stop personal abuse and also abiding by the principles of natural justice.”
An NEC meeting last night failed to come to an agreement on whether members of the PLP should be allowed to elect a proportion of the shadow cabinet, meaning that a decision is unlikely until it reconvenes on November 22. Moderate Labour MPs said the delay amounted to the olive branch being “kicked into the long grass”.
Mr Corbyn has been dogged by allegations that he has failed to get a grip on abuse, and especially anti-Semitism, in the party. Today, the Labour peer Lord Mitchell, who is Jewish, is due to resign his membership over the leader’s handling of the anti-Semitism row.
The businessman, who served as a frontbencher under Ed Miliband, had previously said he would leave Labour if Mr Corbyn was re-elected, and he said last night: “I’m a man of my word.”