Angela Rayner has warned that a "silent majority" is being radicalised online following the attack on Australian MP Dr Helen Haines, who lost a leg after being allegedly rammed twice by a vehicle outside her office in rural Victoria.
The Communities Secretary told Sky News that intimidation was driving people out of politics and that algorithms were fuelling hate online.
Threats Against Politicians
Ms Rayner said: "Many Prime Ministers and international people have spoken about this, in this context of violence, which I think undermines our democracy.
"I've mentioned in many interviews that I might disagree with what the leader of the opposition in the Conservatives says, or the leader of Reform, or the leader of the Greens. It is completely unacceptable to intimidate people and to threaten them. These are democratically elected individuals, whether we like it or not."
She recalled colleagues who had stepped back from public life due to threats, including Mhairi Black and Anna Soubry. She also noted that two of her colleagues had been murdered during her decade in parliament, and that police had been informed about a plot to murder another colleague, Rosie Cooper.
Personal Experience of Intimidation
Ms Rayner said she had panic buttons at her house and had suffered threats against her children, but that 99.9% of the public were "good and decent".
Warning that the "online space is radicalising a lot of this", she said: "A lot of it what is said to me is in communications electronically or online, they wouldn't say it to my face, and I don't feel that they come at me in person. But I really feel there's an issue around the radicalisation, and the violence, and the imagery that is projected on a lot of online platforms."
Government Action and Public Withdrawal
She said the government is taking action on this, but added: "I really feel that we have to push back, because that is not the experience or what the British people are about.
"It's this silent majority that are radicalised, that are angry, that are driven to the algorithms to see more of the hate that is, I think, fuelling a lot of this. It's not just against politicians, but actually you can see people who go online, if they put something in a forum, then there's this like pile-on. People are starting to withdraw because they don't want to express their views because they get attacked for it."
