Abuse and intimidation of election candidates is “a serious and growing concern”, the Electoral Commission has said, as a review of this year’s local and mayoral elections in England revealed a surge in threats to those who stood.
More than half of the candidates for Labour or Reform UK reported abuse while those most likely to be targeted were women, people from minority ethnic backgrounds and those with disabilities.
A report by the commission said candidates described being spat at and verbally and physically assaulted. It found that levels of abuse had reached the point where it was changing the behaviour of people standing in elections.
“I had to take my husband out on the door this time, which was a first,” said one candidate, who was among a third of those who said they may not stand for election again because of harassment or intimidation.
They added: “I felt quite independent previously, but there was so much anger from men of an older age at the door and some younger men, all disillusioned by politics and let down.
“I did understand that, but it was the anger and insults and close confrontation at times which was so aggressive. I feel I have to protect myself in public and not be on my own, for the first time in local politics, and will never put myself in any vulnerable places on my own again.”
Female candidates were more likely to change their behaviour over such concerns. More than three-quarters (۷۹%) said they avoided campaigning on their own at least once, compared with ۴۶% of male candidates, while ۵۷% avoided speaking on controversial topics, compared with ۳۲% of men.
Vijay Rangarajan, the chief executive of the Electoral Commission, said: “Our single biggest worry now is this rise in abuse and intimidation. It’s not directed at any one party and there seems to be a variety of causes.”
He said there was an increasing trend towards the “othering” of political opponents, “literally, a dehumanisation” and a blurring of the boundaries of civility, in some cases driven by social media.
“I think we’re going to see a kind of complete blurring of the online and offline worlds,” he said. “We’ve seen people in the real world walk down the street filming someone to produce an online video. And then when others see that online video, they get very angry and they go and start following someone else down the streets. So this kind of real, complete interaction between online and offline is a real feature.”
Rangarajan said he was struck by two particular cases. One was a disabled candidate who said they were threatened on the doorstep but “couldn’t run away” because of their disability. Another was a candidate who was targeted on social media and whose daughter called from school to say she had seen the online abuse and people were calling her parent a racist, fascist and Nazi.
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The commission made a number of recommendations, including calling on social media companies to do more to tackle the online abuse of candidates by developing rapid response protocols, and calling on parties to urge their members to respect other campaigners.
The review found ۵۹% of Reform UK and ۵۴% of Labour candidates told of personally experiencing inappropriate behaviour, harassment or threats to their security, followed by ۴۲% of Greens, ۳۷% of independents, ۲۶% of Tories and ۲۲% of Liberal Democrats.
Rangarajan said the changes made by some candidates in how they campaigned was affecting local politics.
“It takes away, in some cases, things like meeting your candidate, which is really important in our politics. The second thing is it definitely affects women much more and ethnic minority candidates too, and even more if you’re both. People are stopping wanting to be candidates because of this and that’s a real problem,” he said.
Rangarajan called for a “multi-partisan approach” from parties.
“We’re all up for really robust debate, that’s what the whole election is about and it wouldn’t work if it wasn’t … but it’s got to have a modicum of respect to it as well and there are some things which are really unacceptable, like following someone’s family down the street, for example, trying to video them, or posting people death threats.”
On the upside, the report found that voters continue to be satisfied with how elections are run, with ۹۴% of voters in England expressing satisfaction with the voting process, similar to ۲۰۲۵ (۹۵%) and the last comparable elections in ۲۰۲۲ (۹۶%).
Nevertheless, voters remain concerned about the accuracy of election information. More than half of those surveyed said they had seen misinformation, and one in ۱۰ said they had seen deepfake material.
Rangarajan welcomed proposals in the representation of the people bill to protect election agents’ home addresses, extend protections to electoral staff and increase sentencing for offenders against candidates, elected officials and electoral staff.
