Calls for crackdown after voters threatened with violence at polling stations
EXCLUSION zones around polling stations should be considered after voters were abused and threatened by pro-Gaza campaigners, Labour MPs have said.
Jess Phillips said groups of men tried to intimidate voters, a Labour activist had her tyres slashed and another was threatened with a beating.
She used her victory speech to slam behaviour in the “worst election I have ever stood in” as she was jeered by Palestine supporters.
The Birmingham Yardley MP plans to speak to new Home Secretary Yvette Cooper about tougher electoral regulation.
She told the Sun on Sunday: “What I saw was men crowding around polling stations, threatening people going in, people being dragged to vote a certain way.
“As well as people following activists door knocking, filming them, slashing their tyres, threatening them in the street. There needs to be a look at intimidation in politics.”
She said exclusion zones should be considered: “The days when it was a nice old lady saying politely ‘I hope you Tory, or I hope you vote Labour’. This isn’t what I’m talking about.
“What we saw was literal intimidation, people being threatened with violence when they are going into polling station. It’s always groups of men hanging round polling stations shouting at people.”
It comes amid a backlash in Muslim communities on how long it took Labour to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Labour frontbencher Jonathan Ashworth lost his seat to a pro-Palestine candidate in last week’s General Election.
The conflict helped elect five independent candidates in Labour seats. And slashed the majorities of MPs in areas with significant Muslim populations.
Labour’s candidate in Dewsbury and Batley Heather Iqbal, who lost to an independent, said people abused her in the street calling her a “genocide enabler”.
She added: “It is really aggressive young men. Some of the stuff was really creepy, they would take photos of me leaving and arriving at the community centre and then it would be all over WhatsApp.”
And new Labour Paul Waugh, who toppled leftwing firebrand George Galloway in Rochdale, said his team faced threats on the streets.
The former journalist told BBC Radio 4: “We had to suffer not just abuse and threats and lies on the streets – just as many candidates did across the country who faced independents – by supporters of his.
“Even on the day of the general election, I was standing at a polling station with a couple of female Labour activists who were shouted at and were intimidated. That kind of stuff is utterly unacceptable.”
Pressure group The Muslim Vote warned the Labour Party they have just a “sandcastle” majority.
In an email to supporters, they said: “This is just the beginning, not the end.
“To all the naysayers who said the Muslim community can never unite, can never coordinate – tonight you had your answer.”