Ministers urged to act on physical and online bullying during UK elections | General Election

MPs and candidates who faced abuse during the election campaign have been pressing ministers to act against intimidation around polling stations and via social media algorithms that spread inflammatory content.

Half a dozen MPs and candidates attended a roundtable discussion on Wednesday with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Security Secretary Dan Jarvis and Deputy First Minister Angela Rayner.

Ministers spoke of an alarming increase in intimidation of candidates during the election campaign. Several candidates reported being harassed at campaign events and requiring police protection.

At Wednesday’s meeting, candidates and MPs discussed the possibility of creating buffer zones to restrict campaigning and protests near polling stations, as well as steps to combat social media algorithms that promote inflammatory material to voters.

“Less than 100 metres from the polling stations there were huge screens saying that a vote for Labour was a vote for genocide, and there were protests going on right outside,” said one candidate at the meeting.

Buffer zones have been established near abortion clinics in England and Wales to prevent protesters from harassing women entering the buildings, and Scotland passed a similar law this summer.

TikTok was also “extensively” used during the meeting with ministers, the candidate said, with voters who viewed documents written by pro-Gaza independents being fed increasingly problematic and inflammatory content. “A lot of these things have been confirmed on TikTok – the algorithms are just pointing to more hate and more hate.”

“It’s not acceptable to accept it with a job, because we didn’t accept being threatened and intimidated in this way. A solid responsibility, yes, but not this.”

The discussion focused on candidates’ personal safety, social media and democracy as a whole. Jarvis offered to continue meeting with candidates and relevant MPs next week.

The issue was raised on Thursday at the first meeting of the new government’s Defending Democracy Taskforce. The weekly meeting was set up in 2022 to bring together Whitehall agencies and departments to discuss threats to democracy.

Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle said earlier this month he was exploring the possibility of creating a conference of speakers to assess politicians’ security issues and make recommendations. Parliamentary officials are now drawing up plans.

The idea was originally proposed by former Labour MP Harriet Harman and was among the recommendations made by Lord Walney, the government’s independent adviser on political violence.

Commons leader Lucy Powell said it was a “real challenge to our democratic freedoms and it is in that context that we have to look at it. There is no quick fix to this problem but it is something that many colleagues have experienced after this election.”

On election night, Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood and Home Secretary Jess Phillips gave victory speeches detailing the abuse they had suffered.

In an interview with the Guardian on Saturday, Phillips said: “If we announced door-to-door meetings, they would turn up and film the people we were talking to, shouting that we were genocidal baby killers… The people behind the doors don’t want to be filmed, so they stop you from talking to the people you represent. I couldn’t go to the meetings because there would be people shouting at me to film.”

Walney said there had been “widespread” intimidation and the government should look at “the degree of coordination and the extent to which there was a common ideology or groups or individuals behind a pattern of intimidation”.

“We need to be much clearer and potentially codified about the line between people expressing themselves and protesting in often passionate and sometimes angry ways, and that turning into unacceptable and potentially criminal intimidation,” he said.

During the election campaign, candidates were offered additional safeguards, including full-time safeguarding officers, increased security at political rallies and advice on online protections. These measures were made available on a case-by-case basis and funded by a £31 million government programme.

A TikTok spokesperson said: “We have strict policies against hateful or harassing content, enforced by our 40,000-person global trust and safety team, and we have taken action against violative content whenever we find it. Unlike any other platform, our algorithm is subject to independent oversight by a third-party US company.”