Friday briefing: Is violence against politicians reshaping democracy in the UK?
Good morning. When Andy Burnham returned to Westminster as an MP last month after a decade away, what shocked him – some of his colleagues have said – was the security. In recent years, particularly since the 2017 Houses of Parliament terrorist attack in which five people were killed, security around Westminster has visibly tightened, with armed police patrolling the estate, and vehicle barriers and heavy exterior fencing erected. Meanwhile, violence, abuse and intimidation towards MPs, their staff, families and many others in public life is growing exponentially: rape and death threats are counted in their hundreds and, with increasing regularity, politicians face offline aggression. It is little wonder that the killing of Reform UK spokesperson and former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe at her home in Devon last week has resonated so strongly with those in public life. For today’s newsletter, I spoke to Dr Hannah Phillips from the Jo Cox Foundation, about why our response must extend beyond physical security if we are to change this toxic culture. But first the headlines. Five big stories Gaza | The Gaza recovery plan being pursued by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) has shrunk dramatically to a small pilot project in the south of the strip. UK politics | Sadiq Khan has been given a peerage by Keir Starmer just days before the prime minister stands down. US news | Donald Trump accused China of interfering with the 2020 election in a primetime televised address, which opponents warned was a smokescreen for him to meddle in the forthcoming congressional midterms. Middle East | American forces boarded a ship in the Gulf of Oman on Thursday as part of the renewed blockade of Iran’s ports that began earlier this week, the US military said. UK news | Labour’s foreign aid cuts mean reductions of as much as 90% in the bilateral support the UK will give to some African countries, Foreign Office figures show. In depth: ‘We are doing a job supporting people who are targets’
When the news alert came through to his phone saying Ann Widdecombe’s death was being investigated by counter-terror police, long-serving Commons staffer Tom Fairweather commenced a sadly familiar routine. “You see the news something has happened again. I check in with my team and make sure that they’re OK. You can’t help dwell on the fact that we are doing a job supporting people who are targets.” As the office manager for an Essex-based MP, Fairweather often sat in meetings with Sir David Amess, the MP for Southend West, who was murdered by Islamic State sympathiser, Ali Harbi Ali, in 2021. And as co-convener of the cross-party Wellness Working Group for Commons staff, he has witnessed the development of Operation Bridger, the police protective security programme for MPs and their staff that expanded in 2016 after the murder of Labour MP, Jo Cox, who was killed by the far-right extremist Thomas Mair weeks before the Brexit referendum. Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has said that MPs’ safety “keeps me awake at night”. Fairweather believes security provision for members and staff has greatly improved in recent years, with dedicated police contacts and support, monitoring for online threats to life, constituency offices undergoing expert security reviews and having panic buttons installed in workplaces and homes. But he stresses the extent of the challenge. Parliament is “a very atypical environment – effectively 650 microbusinesses with a satellite office in every constituency in the country. It’s a nightmare for the security teams.” Phillips characterises the situation thus: “More and more people in public life, MPs, councillors, staff, even families of politicians, activists, are saying experiencing some form of violence, abuse or intimidation is expected. And that normalisation is something we’re really concerned about.” *** The reality Evidence of the worsening threat level is all around us. A substantial report from the Electoral Commission on the 2024 general election found that over a quarter of candidates had experienced harassment, intimidation or abuse at least four times, with women and those from ethnic minority backgrounds more likely to report serious abuse. MPs receive so many rape and death threats they have to remind themselves not to be blase, Labour MP Jess Phillips told the Guardian earlier this week, while former Conservative MP Dame Penny Mordaunt, who lost her seat in 2024, revealed that since then: “I haven’t had a day when I haven’t had a live police investigation [into rape or death threats] or court case going on”. On Wednesday, a man was arrested over an alleged threat to shoot the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, who has estimated he receives 300 threats every month. And increasingly, the threat is moving offline. MPs’ staff describe “horrendous” in-person threats of violence, being doxed and followed as well as what a recent staff welfare report described as a rising number of “mentally and emotionally unstable constituents” who require sensitive management. In recent years, tensions over Labour’s stance of Gaza led to angry protests outside constituency offices and vandalism, climate activists and anti-abortion protesters targeted MPs’ family homes, while two Russian-linked arsonists attacked property connected to Keir Starmer. *** The impact More evidence is emerging that all this is having an effect on the way people are participating in politics, says Phillips, who has worked at the Jo Cox Foundation for three years. When a tranche of women MSPs stepped down from Holyrood at May’s Scottish parliament election, many referenced on and offline harassment as part of their rationale for not seeking reelection; Phillips says elected politicians are self-censoring, not having as many in-person meetings nor engaging with members of the public online. The Electoral Commission research also discovered that some candidates didn’t participate in hustings because they were fearful of abuse. “That seems to have been a change in recent years,” says Phillips, whereby candidates modify their behaviour not through direct experience but expectation. “That’s really concerning for our democracy.” Then there’s the pipeline effect: in 2023, Girl Guiding UK revealed that more than a third of girls are deterred from specific careers, including politics, because of the abuse meted out to high-profile women. *** The solutions Andy Burnham has said a serious review is needed into MP security following Widdecombe’s death, and improvements are ongoing: Operation Ford is a new scheme extending Bridger-style resources nationwide to local politicians and candidates. Other parliaments across the UK have also increased their provision. The Scottish parliament has offered an online threat monitoring service for all MSPs since 2024, removing the burden from individual offices and providing early notice to police. Jess Phillips told the Guardian that the threat to MPs must be tackled at source, amidst an ongoing refusal by social media platforms to take responsibility for what’s published on their platforms: “Everybody who’s ever attacked me has read a load of untrue stuff online that they had been fed by their algorithm.” And the Jo Cox Foundation is supporting a campaign for an elections code of practice aimed at social media companies, with a particular emphasis on risk assessments around the spreading of disinformation. “But in order to address this complex problem, we need broader political and societal change,” says Hannah Phillips. And this is the Jo Cox Foundation’s primary purpose: connecting across difference, improving community cohesion and generating more respectful politics. Research they commissioned for the tenth anniversary of Cox’s death found that, while many of us feel that our communities have become more divided and that our ties to our neighbours have weakened, a third remain committed to improving those connections. *** The community The barriers to improved connection that the study identified are worth digesting: those who are financially comfortable feel more connected to their community; younger people said anxiety, lack of confidence and digital fatigue stopped them reaching out; older generations were more likely to build on “micro-moments’ of connection – a chat with a neighbour or giving directions to a stranger. The research also discovered that people who feel well connected to their local community are the most likely to report having meaningful interaction with people of different political viewpoints. And that challenge is met at grassroots level by the kind of community-building facilitated by the Jo Cox Foundation along with other groups like Who is Your Neighbour? and Hope Unlimited that were generously supported by Guardian readers in last year’s Christmas appeal. We reported on the Salaam Shalom kitchen, a joint Muslim-Jewish venture in Nottingham that tackles interfaith bigotry at the “chop and chat” table, Back on the Map’s work to revitalise a Sunderland neighbourhood after far-right riots in 2024, and The Linking Network’s programme uniting Bradford primary schoolchildren from different faiths and backgrounds. “Social connection is not just nice to have”, Phillips tells me, “it’s a bedrock of safe, resilient, cohesive society.” We want to hear from you What would you do if you were in Andy Burnham’s cabinet? We’d like to hear from readers with experience of the NHS, education, defence and so forth about what you think new ministers should prioritise. To get in touch hit reply or email first.edition@theguardian.com What else we’ve been enjoying
From lewd propositions to drunken brawls, cabin crew face it all (and worse) at 30,000 feet. Zoe Williams hears some horror stories from the sky – and now I’m planning a staycation. Michael Chris Nolan’s film adaptation of The Odyssey promises to be inescapable this summer, so I appreciated this – very smart – idiot’s guide to reading Homer’s classic – which was likely not even written by Homer, it transpires. Libby I couldn’t tell you the first thing about how Dungeons and Dragons works, but reading how players of the (magic?) table top game raised over $5m for progressive causes has piqued my interest. Michael World Cup 2026
Argentina | The Guardian’s rugby union correspondent Robert Kitson writes after watching England’s semi-final defeat in Buenos Aires, surrounded by celebrating fans. “Tell them you’re Scottish,” was one friend’s advice. Climate crisis | Guardian analysis has found one in five World Cup games reached heat levels a players’ union has said should trigger delays or postponements. Golden boot | Ahead of this Sunday’s final (and Saturday’s England v France “bronze” playoff), bookmark the Guardian’s Golden Boot tracker to see if it’s Messi, Mbappé – or even Bellingham or Kane – who top the list of competition goal-scorers. Sport
Golf | Once-talkative Bryson DeChambeau had little to say except to respond to Nick Faldo’s ‘zero strategy’ jibe as Jackson Suber set the pace at the 154th Open Championship. Cycling | Soudal-Quick-Step rider Tim Merlier pipped Olav Kooij and Jasper Philipsen on the line but further back, Tadej Pogacar safely retained the yellow jersey. Cricket | Joe Root steered England to a four-wicket victory in Cardiff with an unbeaten 99, sharing a 72-run stand with Will Jacks, to level the ODI series with India. Something for the weekend Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now
Film The Odyssey | ★★★★★ Christopher Nolan reinvents the Homeric legend as a colossal origin-myth story of postwar disillusion, an epic ordeal of anguish witnessed by the dead and presided over by capricious deities who participate on almost equal terms with the humans. It speaks to the generational pain of PTSD. The invisible odyssey of anguish is punctuated by flashback episodes, hallucinations, confrontations with the arbitrary gods of dysfunction. And all the time the spouses and children cannot move on with their lives. This is a film with thrilling ambition, boldness, seriousness, generosity and flair. It has gasp-inducing, Imax-sized landscapes of loneliness – and full-tilt battle sequences and fight scenes accompanied by the throbbing and thrumming of drums. Peter Bradshaw TV Evolution | ★★★★★ With this new, five-part BBC nature documentary, the presenter Chris Packham is effectively crowned the successor to David Attenborough. Packham has all the great man’s passion for his subject and the willingness and ability to share his knowledge as accessibly as possible. He treads the line between assuming nothing and not infantilising his audience as nimbly as Attenborough does. Evolution takes one animal an episode and delves into a particular aspect of it and the evolutionary journey it represents. And Packham is never afraid to express a sense of wonder at the miraculous-seeming nature of it all. Lucy Mangan Games D-topia | ★★★☆☆ In the far future, on a planet that is not Earth, AI is in charge. Manifesting most visibly as cute droids, the technology is pervasive, and the so-called Optimization System has but one responsibility: ensuring the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. In less skilled hands this game might have felt like an undergraduate seminar on the limits of utilitarianism. But Japanese studio Marumittu Games elegantly marries its philosophical concerns with smart design choices. You play as a young, unnamed Facilitator tasked with tending to both the city’s bots and its human residents. Nothing is too taxing, but there’s enough to keep you engaged. This is a deceptively simple game, artfully told. Lewis Gordon Books Up All Night by Imogen Willetts In this fabulous alternative history of the modern world, the academic and “party historian” Imogen Willetts looks at the last 500 years of civilisation through the sometimes blurry lenses of its after-dark scenes, with fascinating results. She begins by trying to capture what it feels like to go on a big night out, focusing on a phenomenon that, in 1912, the sociologist Émile Durkheim labelled “collective effervescence”. In one passage, she explains this by referencing dancing as part of ancient tribal hunting rituals, listening to Charli xcx’s 365, or singing along to Sweet Caroline with tens of thousands of other people in a stadium. This is no dry academic study, and its mix of historical research, critical theory and conversational references to pop culture makes for a bright and compelling read. Rebecca Nicholson The front pages
“Trump’s Board of Peace drops ambitious plan to rebuild Gaza”, is the Guardian’s front page today. On UK politics, the Times has “Burnham set for left-wing revolt over Mahmood”, the Telegraph says “IMF issues spending warning to Burnham”, and the i Paper writes “Andy Burnham prime minister in 72 hours”. The Mail runs with “Foreign aid farce over Rochdale grooming gang boss”. Elsewhere, the FT splashes “China start-up Moonshot set to cut US lead in frontier AI”. On the World Cup, the Mirror calls Argentina’s flag-waving a “Final insult”, the Express says “It’s a ‘childish and petulant’ insult to UK”, the Sun goes with “Only 693 till the Euros” and Metro’s take is “It’s getting very Messi”. The Latest
What went wrong for England in World Cup clash against Argentina? England have again suffered World Cup heartache, conceding two late goals that gave Argentina a dramatic 2-1 comeback win and a place in the final against Spain on Sunday. Many have blamed manager Thomas Tuchel’s substitution decisions for the defeat. So did his tactics ultimately backfire? Annie Kelly speaks to sports columnist, Jonathan Liew. Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
A sauna might not be top of anyone’s agenda in London right now, given the interminable heatwave that the climate crisis has wrought upon the capital city, but the work of R-Urban Poplar raises a sweat without destroying the planet. The world’s first “community powered” sauna, it uses the food waste from the local housing estate in Tower Hamlets, to power the hot room. Food waste from the Teviot estate is processed in a local scale anaerobic digester to produce methane gas and power the sauna. “Nine years ago, the site was an unused car park and empty garages,” writes our reporter, Damien Gayle. “Now, butterflies flutter around leaves and flowers in raised, no-dig beds.” Elle McAll from the Women’s Environmental Network, which has helped fund R-Urban, says: “The whole thing really has been about how can we reimagine our local food system so it really does genuinely benefit local communities.” Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday Bored at work? And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow. Quick crossword Cryptic crossword Wordiply
