The intimidation of moderate Labour MPs is revolting to watch.
I am glad that the Metropolitan Police has swung into action. I salute Twitter for switching off the accounts of cyber-bullies. The Sergeant of Arms should get stuck in. The Labour Party should hurry up and write its code of conduct.
Quite right!
But all this front-page hullaballo and metropolitan hand-wringing about political intimidation does make you pause to think about those people who have lived with this sort of bullying for years without much sympathy from anyone.
Imagine working for a shale gas company and facing fear and intimidation in the workplace from protestors who sabotage equipment, invade your premises, abuse you on Twitter, spit and scream through the fences?
What can it be like to be master of rural hunt recovering from a physical beating that has left you with brain damage and wondering if you will ever get better, like Mike Lane of the Tedworth hunt?
We all know the stories of the scientists who work to fight diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s through perfectly legal experiments on animals under the tightest of regulations. Or those who work to improve crop yields and resilience through genetic modification. Or the fur dealer with security buzzers and security guards on the door.
Protest is central to any democracy. Of course. People must be allowed their freedom to say what they think, to march on Parliament, to wave banners and shout their heads off.
But in Britain we give too much latitude to those who abandon reasoned argument and instead use physical abuse, emotional bullying and intimidation to advance their political agenda. The press participate in a convenient, TV-friendly fiction that treats each physical protest as though it was a spontaneous outpouring of popular emotion and not, as is more often the case, the cleverly-orchestrated, highly-spun creation of an NGO comms strategy. The tech companies are reluctantly stepping up to their responsibilities to clamp down on bullies, but too slowly.
But it is the politicians who are most culpable because too often they are cowed by the bullying of angry bullies and seek compromise to avoid a nasty public battle. Of course, like the gutsy Stella Creasy, we all claim we are not intimidated. But, whatever people’s private views, it is not easy to get people to stand up publically for shale gas, for Israel, for GM, for fur, for nuclear energy and so on. And in that environment of fear, our politicians are vulnerable to a baying crowd and can end up making poor decisions. “What can I do?” they ask, with an annoying shrug of their shoulders.
These bullies, agitators and professional protestors who marched on Stella Creasy’s house and abused MPs on social media, have not appeared from the mist. This is not a spontaneous new phenomenon, like hover-boards or sexting. Most belong to a long-standing campaign of poison and spite that is rooted in the fractious but inter-related blob of anti-capitalist protestors, largely anti-carbon, anti-Israel, anti-corporate, anti-development and anti-change. The only thing that is new is that target has switched from what might be called the institutions of the right and it’s now the moderate left who are now feeling the heat.
The consequences have damaged Britain more than most people are prepared to admit. It creates a climate of fear where anger and ideology can overwhelm common sense or the economic and social good of the country. In Britain, we do not have any shale gas production, our domestic nuclear skills-base died of old age waiting for the politicians to grow a pair and energy regulation is the most expensive in the world. This hits the pocket of working people – at a time of historically low worldwide energy prices, fuel bills are a significant household concern.
Too often, policy is not made on the facts or in the interests of the country. It is made in response to threats and in the interests of narrow, weakly-argued minority opinion.
Labour MPs, who looked away when abuse is directed elsewhere, have proved very sensitive when they are at the receiving end.
It is time we all called a halt to bullying and intimidation in the political life of Britain.
