We marked a deeply significant milestone on 16 June: the 10th anniversary of the tragic murder of Jo Cox MP. Five years later, we lost Sir David Amess MP.
When Jo was taken from us, the collective cry was ‘never again’. Yet here we are, in 2026, facing a reality where abuse, intimidation and hostility towards elected officials have not shrunk, but grown.
Abuse of candidates and elected representatives is no longer an anomaly. Tragically, many in local and national government have begun to accept it as an occupational hazard.
But let us be absolutely clear: as normalised as abuse has become, it is entirely unacceptable and it poses a serious threat to our democracy.
The data paints a worrying picture. The LGA’s 2025 Debate Not Hate councillor survey revealed that nearly three-quarters of councillors (73 per cent) reported feeling personally at risk while fulfilling their duties.
This issue has been supercharged by a perfect storm of collapsing trust and a rise in misinformation, disinformation and deepfakes driven by artificial intelligence.
At the same time, hostility is becoming generationally normalised. According to the UK Electoral Commission, only 25 per cent of young people aged 18 to 24 view verbally threatening a politician in public as unacceptable.
The consequences for our democracy are devastating: talented people are walking away (56 per cent of councillors surveyed by the LGA in 2025 were not standing again or were unsure about doing so); and the impact is disproportionately felt by women, disabled representatives and people from ethnic minority communities, which ultimately risks reversing decades of progress in local diversity.
But we cannot lose hope. Through the Jo Cox Civility Commission, we have a clear roadmap.
Working alongside local and national partners, including the LGA, we have already driven forward vital protections, from dedicated police support for local politicians via Operation Ford to removing security costs from election spending limits and finally ending the requirement for councillors to publish their home addresses.
Crucially, the Representation of the People Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, contains measures for which we have long fought, including tougher sentences for those who harass candidates.
But the job is far from done. To safeguard local democracy, we must focus our collective action across four key areas.
First, we must properly resource Operation Ford across police forces, and ensure local authorities have the funding required for risk planning, wellbeing resources and dedicated security contacts.
Second, we must robustly implement new mandatory political and media literacy in schools, raise awareness of the role of elected representatives among adults, and encourage elected representatives to actively visit education institutions to humanise their roles and bridge the trust gap.
Third, we must hold tech platforms accountable to a true duty of care and safety-by-design principles, forcing them to prevent abuse at the source.
And fourth, political parties and individuals must also model and embed respectful disagreement.
As we mark this poignant anniversary, let us remember Jo Cox’s defining words: “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”
Let this be the moment we draw a line in the sand to build a safe, diverse democracy rooted in mutual respect.
- Visit jocoxfoundation.org to find out more, including about the recommendations of the Jo Cox Civility Commission. See the LGA’s 2025 Debate Not Hate councillor survey.