‘Worst year in memory’: parties describe climate of abuse on campaign trail for May elections

Candidates and political parties have described a climate of abuse in this year’s local and devolved elections, including death threats and intimidation while campaigning.Politicians from a range of parties have reported abuse and harassment in the lead-up to the elections in England, Scotland and Wales, with the Green Party describing this year’s campaign as the worst in memory.Labour’s Dan Jarvis, the security minister, condemned “the rising tide of vile abuse, harassment and intimidation aimed towards elected officials and candidates” online and in person. “Anyone engaging in this sort of behaviour is directly attacking our democracy and we all must do more to stop it becoming normalised,” he said.A spokesperson for the Green Party said some candidates had received death threats or been “yelled at or chased down the street”, and some had withdrawn from campaigning in certain areas due to harassment.“Anecdotally, this has been the worst year in memory,” the spokesperson said. They said the party had been “a focus at this election more than ever before”, with “some wildly false claims being made about the party and its representatives, which some members of the public have accepted on face value”.It is unknown how widespread abuse and harassment has been on the campaign trail this year. The Electoral Commission will publish its report on the 2026 elections, including its findings on abuse and intimidation, in the autumn.Before the elections, the Electoral Commission said: “Candidates at elections have been subject to unacceptable abuse while campaigning in recent years.”Its most recent candidate research found that 61% of respondents, who were candidates in the 2025 local elections in England, experienced harassment or security threats during the campaign and 71% said they avoided some campaign activity because of fear of abuse.The abuse has occurred across political divides. The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, criticised Elon Musk in April after detailing how his party’s candidates from minority ethnic backgrounds were being subjected to “utterly appalling abuse” on X, which Musk owns.This week the Labour mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker, told the BBC he had been threatened and followed while campaigning in Coventry.The Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) released a statement on Tuesday condemning “reports of increased racial and Islamophobic harassment of candidates in the run up to the Scottish parliament elections”, while a spokesperson for Plaid Cymru said online discourse had “become increasingly toxic”.In two separate incidents in April in Birmingham, a Green Party candidate said he was accosted by campaigners supporting an independent group of candidates.Hanooshi Hassan, who was leafleting at a mosque at the time, said he was threatened by one individual and was repeatedly told by the group that the Green Party was the “gay party”. “There was homophobia immediately,” he said. “They were being very loud and boisterous, calling us the gay party and saying that we want to turn their kids gay.”He added: “One of the men … threatened to beat me up.” West Midlands police confirmed they had received two reports of alleged harassment on 17 and 24 April on Dudley Road and said inquiries were ongoing.Bishop Desmond Jaddoo, who is running as an independent candidate in Birmingham and is not aligned with the group involved in the incident with Hassan, said he had received sustained racial abuse, mainly online, during the campaign.In one incident after Jaddoo distributed leaflets on Monday, he said he was told by an unknown caller: “Listen you black bastard, do not put anything else through my letterbox. I’m voting Reform.”Jaddoo said much of the abuse he received online was “fuelled by rightwing rhetoric”. “I think the way political parties are speaking, they are stoking racial discrimination and they are damaging race relations in this country,” he said.The Jo Cox Foundation, which was founded after the Labour MP Jo Cox was murdered in 2016 by a far-right extremist, said there were clear signs the problem was getting worse.“Too many candidates, their families and their teams, from all sides of the political spectrum, have experienced abuse, harassment and threats during this year’s elections,” said Olivia Field, the chief executive of the organisation. “This represents one of the biggest threats to the functioning of our democracy.“Increasingly, people do not feel safe enough to fully participate in politics. Some are choosing not to stand at all, while others are self-censoring or limiting how they engage with voters. Elections should be a contest of ideas, not an endurance test against intimidation.”