55% OF CANDIDATES FACED A PROBLEM WITH ABUSE. THAT IS HOW DEMOCRACY GETS SMALLER.
Politics is supposed to be an argument about how a country should be run. Increasingly, for the people who actually put their names on ballot papers, it is also becoming a calculation about whether it is safe to knock on a door, attend a meeting, post online or walk back to the car alone. New evidence from the Electoral Commission published today shows that abuse and intimidation are no longer an ugly side issue around British elections. They are changing who feels able to participate in democracy and how candidates behave when they do.
The Commission’s review of England’s May 2026 local and mayoral elections found that 55% of candidates said harassment or intimidation had been a problem, up from 47% in 2025. Women, people from ethnic minority backgrounds and disabled candidates were more likely to report abuse. The watchdog says many candidates changed the way they campaigned because of it. That should concern people across the political spectrum, because intimidation does not become acceptable when the target wears a rosette we dislike.
A democratic argument is not the same thing as intimidation
Politicians and candidates are not entitled to be protected from criticism. They ask for votes, seek power and make decisions that affect other people. Voters have every right to challenge them robustly, expose hypocrisy, protest, scrutinise records and say that a policy is cruel, foolish, dishonest or dangerous when the evidence supports that judgment. A healthy democracy is noisy. It should be.
But criticism is not the same as a threat. Disagreement is not the same as stalking somebody home. Accountability is not the same as racial abuse, misogynistic intimidation, physical aggression or deliberately making a candidate fear for their safety. The Electoral Commission’s public-attitudes research finds that people understand that distinction: criticism of policies and public actions is broadly accepted as part of political life, while violence, threats, physically intimidating behaviour and abuse based on race, sexuality or religion are regarded as clear red lines.
That distinction matters because one of the easiest ways to normalise abuse is to pretend that condemning it means politicians want immunity from criticism. They do not need immunity. They need the same basic protection from threats and intimidation that should apply to everybody else. We can demand more from public figures while refusing to make fear a condition of public service.
The people pushed out first are not random
The unequal pattern in the new findings is especially serious. Women, ethnic minority candidates and disabled candidates were more likely to experience abuse. That does more than hurt individuals. It changes the pool of people willing to stand for office. If the cost of participation is higher for some groups than others, intimidation becomes a crude political filter: not one written into electoral law, but one enforced through fear.
That has consequences long after an abusive message is deleted. A woman deciding she will no longer canvass alone, a first-time candidate deciding that one campaign was enough, or a minority candidate deciding that public life is not worth the racist abuse are all democratic losses. The ballot paper may still offer several names, but the invisible list of people who chose never to stand can become narrower. Representation is shaped not only by who wins elections, but by who feels safe enough to enter them.
The Jo Cox Civility Commission has warned for years that abuse and intimidation can deter people from standing and encourage existing representatives to leave. That warning carries particular weight in Britain, where the murder of MP Jo Cox remains an unavoidable reminder that political hatred can cross from rhetoric into violence. Nobody should use that history to shut down legitimate anger. We should use it to recognise why dehumanisation, threats and obsessive targeting are not harmless political theatre.
The online world is not separate from the real one
Much of the abuse reported by candidates happens online, and that creates a convenient illusion: that a hostile comment on a screen belongs to a different category from intimidation in the street. The Commission’s research points instead to a wider culture of hostility and division, particularly online. Candidates described changing their real-world behaviour because of what they encountered. A digital threat can alter where someone goes, whether they campaign alone and whether their family feels safe.
Social platforms did not invent political anger, misogyny or racism. Nor is every furious post evidence of an algorithmic conspiracy. But platforms do create incentives. Content that provokes strong emotion can travel rapidly; political creators can gain followers, status, donations, subscriptions and influence from audiences kept in a state of permanent grievance. When opponents are repeatedly described not merely as wrong but as traitors, enemies, invaders, groomers, criminals or existential threats, the distance between political disagreement and personal hostility becomes easier to cross.
That does not mean every person using inflammatory political language intends somebody else to issue a threat. Intent has to be evidenced, not invented. It does mean public figures, campaign organisations and media personalities should be accountable for the environment they help create. If your business model or political strategy depends on persuading people that their neighbours and opponents are destroying the country, you do not get to treat the resulting hostility as somebody else’s problem when it becomes useful content, votes or engagement.
Misinformation makes the danger worse
The same Electoral Commission report identifies a second pressure on the democratic system: more than half of surveyed voters said they had encountered misinformation, while one in ten said they had seen deepfake material. The Commission’s own pilot found political deepfakes were not widespread in these elections, which is important context. The danger is real, but it should not itself be exaggerated into panic.
The combination of misinformation and intimidation is nevertheless potent. A false allegation about a candidate can spread faster than a correction, especially when it confirms what an angry audience already wants to believe. Once a person has been recast online as corrupt, predatory, anti-British or secretly working for some hated group, abuse can feel righteous to the people delivering it. That is one reason evidence matters before outrage. A democracy cannot function well if fabrication becomes an acceptable weapon simply because the target belongs to the other side.
The Commission is calling for social-media companies to remove abusive content more quickly and help identify perpetrators, while urging political parties to support stronger campaigning standards. Government action is also moving through the Representation of the People Bill, including measures aimed at hostility towards candidates and electoral staff. Any new powers must be balanced carefully with freedom of expression. Protecting candidates must never become a pretext for criminalising ordinary protest, satire or fierce criticism.
This is not a left-versus-right problem
One of the most revealing aspects of the new evidence is that abuse does not fit neatly into a partisan morality play. Candidates from different parties report being targeted. Labour and Reform candidates were among those reporting high levels of harassment. That should puncture the comforting idea that political intimidation is something only the other tribe does.
Truth Vs Hate regularly challenges rhetoric from Reform, the far right and anti-migrant networks because evidence demands that scrutiny. The same principle applies in reverse. A Reform candidate being threatened is still being threatened. A Conservative councillor being racially abused does not become less deserving of protection because somebody dislikes Conservative policy. A Green, Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate does not surrender their right to safety by seeking office. The test cannot be whether we sympathise with the victim’s politics.
When each side excuses abuse committed by people who share its goals, politics becomes a permission structure. The message is simple: intimidation is unacceptable, except when our anger feels justified. Eventually everybody claims justification. The result is not stronger democracy. It is a contest over who can frighten the other side most effectively.
Who benefits when politics feels dangerous?
There is no single mastermind behind Britain’s increasingly hostile political culture. Some abuse is spontaneous. Some comes from organised networks. Some is driven by prejudice, some by personal grievance and some by people who simply enjoy provoking strangers online. But the incentive structure deserves scrutiny.
Political entrepreneurs can benefit when audiences believe the country is in permanent crisis. Influencers can benefit from engagement. Parties can benefit when anger mobilises supporters. Platforms can benefit from attention. Campaign groups can benefit from donations and visibility. None of those incentives proves that a particular person wants threats to occur. They do explain why outrage can be repeatedly rewarded even when its social cost is borne by somebody else.
The answer is not less political passion. Britain needs people who care enough to argue, organise, protest and stand for election. The answer is to stop confusing cruelty with courage. A person who challenges a candidate with evidence is participating in democracy. A person who threatens them into silence is shrinking it.
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The Electoral Commission’s figures should be treated as a democratic warning, not as another statistic to scroll past. When 55% of candidates say harassment or intimidation was a problem, and the burden falls especially heavily on women, ethnic minorities and disabled people, the effect is political whether or not the abuser thinks of it that way. Fear changes behaviour. It changes who campaigns alone, who speaks publicly and eventually who decides to stand at all.
Truth Vs Hate exists because division has become profitable in votes, influence, attention and money. That does not mean every angry voter is manipulated or every political creator is cynical. It means we should be much less willing to reward people who turn opponents into enemies and then shrug when the audience behaves as though an enemy must be confronted rather than a citizen debated. Robust politics is essential. Dehumanisation is not robustness. Threats are not accountability. Intimidation is not free speech with extra passion.
The standard has to apply to everyone. Challenge politicians hard. Fact-check them. Protest them. Vote them out. Expose lies when the evidence proves a lie. But a democracy in which decent people decide public service is too dangerous is a democracy handing power to the people most comfortable with intimidation. That is not a victory for ordinary voters. It is a victory for whoever can make the public square most hostile.
Sources
Truth Vs Hate links readers to the principal evidence because nobody should have to take our conclusions on trust. Read the underlying material, check the context and make up your own mind. Transparent sourcing is one of the simplest defences against misinformation and manipulative political narratives.
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