Conclusion 2

The rise of online abuse and harassment of female parliamentary candidates and MPs, including rape and death threats, is intolerable. It is unacceptable that such behaviour has become commonplace and contributed to female MPs standing down at the last general election. Vicious misogynistic abuse must not be accepted as an inevitable facet of a woman’s life in politics. The Government points to the Draft Online Safety Bill and the Elections Bill as ways of addressing the issue. However, we are concerned that these pieces of legislation lack specific focus on the abuse currently being experienced by women, and particularly Black and minority ethnic women, in politics. It remains to be seen whether the Government’s current legislative proposals will be sufficient given the sheer scale and severity of the problem.