The brutal killing of Ann Widdecombe earlier this year has given us all cause to pause about the state of our politics. We do not yet know why she was killed, and it would be wrong to speculate. But Britain already knows where political violence can lead: Jo Cox. David Amess. Still others whose plots were mercifully foiled by the police.
In a previous era of political murder and intimidation, Margaret Thatcher said after the Brighton bombing:
“We must never never never be stopped; never be stopped from going among the people by a few men of violence, because that is what they want, and if they stop us democracy would not be able to continue.”
As Caron Lindsay pointed out on this site two years ago, political violence is nothing new. Yet today the danger is not merely that violence happens. It is that we are starting to accept it.
The rot starts with smaller acts. Intimidation becomes ordinary; violence becomes accepted, even mocked. What was forbidden becomes normal.
My withdrawal from restanding as Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Kettering in 2024 was never just about the treatment of my stammer. It was about intimidation, threats and the fear that the next angry encounter might not remain verbal. A fear that too many candidates and councillors have come to expect.
Nine years ago, during a council by-election in Barton Seagrave, a man squared up to me on the doorstep, so angry that his own wife had to hold him back. The cause? My opposition to a Parish Council tax rise to fund a village hall.
Seven years ago, during the 2019 General Election, I was called a “traitor” online and at least one local man fantasised about hanging me from a lamppost. I stopped feeling safe alone in my own hometown. I went to the count in a Christmas jumper, but did my Christmas shopping elsewhere.
Five years ago, while delivering leaflets during the local elections, a man recognised me and chased me down the street. I ran and hid. By then there were places I would not canvass alone, fearing verbal abuse might become physical — as later happened to our own Kevin Lang.
Then, one year ago, I found myself reluctantly back on a ballot paper in Higham Ferrers.
I had stood nowhere else, not even as a paper candidate, because I did not want to expose myself again to that abuse. But our candidate died, and a quirk of electoral law left me the only person able to take his place.
I agreed, but with precautions: a panic alarm, staying close to help, and police advice on staying safe.
But what struck me most was not that I was frightened. It was that everybody seemed to be frightened.
My two Labour opponents had been threatened with violence in an anonymous public post. Several Reform activists behaved towards me in ways I found intimidating. And when I challenged one of my Reform opponents about it, they told me of voters screaming at them, threatening them and chasing them down people’s drives.
They were frightened too.
Different rosettes, same fear.
Across parties and across years, the same disgraceful story: Lib Dem Kevin Lang, grabbed by the throat. Conservative Carla Hales, punched three times. Labour’s Cathy Cordiner-Achenbach, punched in the stomach. Reform’s Thomas Kerr, violently shoved while campaigning.
The ugly truth is violence is not unusual. Neither are threats, abuse or intimidation.
And if your reaction changes according to the colour of the rosette, then you are part of the problem. A problem that falls disproportionately on women and people of colour.
In Parliament, Lisa Smart MP and Zöe Franklin MP are working hard to tackle these issues. I fully support them, though the mountain remains dauntingly high.
In 2024, I said that the problem with our political culture was simple: “What we walk past, we accept.”
That is what makes the footage from the Reform conference so disgraceful. A young woman is pulled from behind, grabbed by the hair and around the upper body. She is then beaten with a stick. It must have been terrifying.
Then came the reaction. Nigel Farage, himself a victim of political violence, mocked it from the stage. Robert Jenrick: “Oh boo-hoo.” Lee Anderson, Party Chair? “If anybody wants to have a quick whip round later, we are collecting for a new walking stick.”
In 2026, we are no longer merely walking past political violence. Too many of us are stopping to watch, laughing, minimising, and finding reasons why it matters less when the victim is on the other side.
A bully unchallenged is a bully undaunted. After all, all it has ever taken to cede control is for the decent to look the other way.
The men of violence are back in British politics, and this time they come with permission. We now face the choice so many generations before us have faced. Who governs us: is it the ballot, or is it the fist?
* Chris Nelson is a Liberal Democrat member, teacher, and charity director. He was a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate across four general elections, for the Kettering and Wellingborough constituencies.
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11 Comments
Great article. The question is, what more could we be doing to oppose political violence and intimidation?
How about we – as a pro-trans Party – call for ‘Bash Back’ to be proscribed? I trust no Liberal Democrat is willing to excuse their criminal tactics because they agree with their cause. It is time for us to take a stand on this fundamental point of principle.
Seven years ago, during the 2019 General Election, I was called a “traitor” online…
We struggle to have a nuanced discussion in the party on a certain subject without similar accusations being thrown about.
The only way to counter such violence has to be in ways that the perpetrators recognise is harsher sentences. This does not necessarily have to be prison, heavier fines and work in the community are all options. Jana. Please do not assume that everybody in the party is pro trans. Just oppose violence towards them.
This is absolutely right.
There should be a clear dividing line between demonstrations of support for a particular cause and deliberate intimidation, and this is very much not just aimed at party politicians and candidates.
The’s a particular pattern of physical violence and intimidation directed at gender critical campaigners (especially when they’re women).
When Bash Back smashed windows at the Brighton Conference centre last year and then shouted abuse at women entering and leaving the building, because they were meeting there for the FiLiA international women’s conference on women’s rights, some local members seemed to think that those women – and the conference centre – deserved what they got. A LibDem MP even seemed to think it was amusing.
A detransitioner I know was physically assaulted by a protester in a mask when he was leaving another gender critical conference.
In 2024, masked black-clad protesters blocked the entrance of the Royal College of General Practitioners in London and tried to force their way in by breaking through the doors, because a gender critical medical campaign organisation was holding a conference there.
Liberal Democrats who actually believe in liberal values should not hesitate to condemn violence and intimidation of that sort, directed again any political or campaign groups.
Its becoming very clear that the far right is weaponising its troops with on street shows of force ,it at the South East ports with men in balaclavas , encouraging vigalante groups into patrolling our town centres or claiming our towns our unsafe to walk in . We need to work with the local police and community safety to dispel these falsehoods . even if this means arresting the those who incite such behavior .
People who wear face masks and intimidate travellers at Dover are rightly condemned and action is being taken. People who wear face masks and intimidate women have been ignored for years. There is a double standard where violence against women is concerned. It’s time to take action.
I totally agree with this article. We have to stop the growing culture of violence. But I think it goes deeper. The root cause of much of the violence is that too many people no longer see their opponents as human beings with legitimate differing beliefs, but instead automatically dismiss political opponents as corrupt or morally deficient. And progressives are just as guilty of that as people on the right. When, instead of engaging in rational debate, we simply accuse people we disagree with of being racists, bigots, transphobes, or whatever, we’re directly contributing to the culture of dehumanizing people on ‘the other side’. And that dehumanization leads to attempts ‘cancel’ people, to deny freedom of speech even within the party and ultimately to the kind of violence that we now see depressingly often.
I’d really like us to
(a) Work with other parties (ALL other parties, even parties that we fundamentally disagree with) to see how we can tone down the rhetoric on all sides
(b) Quickly condemn all violence equally (irrespective of whether it comes from the far right or from groups like BashBack or Palestine action), and pressure the Government to prosecute perpetrators quickly
(c) Review the culture within our own party to ensure it’s tolerant of different views amongst liberals.
Reform continue their slow decline in the Polls, where they stand a second time their Vote share mostly falls, they are losing Councillors steadily. Even the most deluded Far-Rightists can see that Farage is never going to be PM.
The Downside is that there is no longer any reason for restraint so we can expect more open violence.
@Tim Roger’s
“ Jana. Please do not assume that everybody in the party is pro trans. Just oppose violence towards them.”
I know you are correct on this – I know a number of members who have told me they are uncomfortable with the Party’s official position but fear the reaction that may follow were they to voice those opinions. However, despite the Party’s position regarding trans rights, I believe we should be able to condemn the actions of Bash Back and be able to call for them to be proscribed.
Having been “attacked” on social media for my political and social views (I am normally a LD voter) from time to time – with the attacks being personal rather than about the issue – I have now come off social media and keep my views to myself. These verbal attacks, I.might add, have come from left and right, depending on the issue. After many years of feeling free to speak up and debate issues, this no longer seems acceptable. A sad state of affairs.
The growth in polarization is attributed to social media but to an extent the forms of social media that we now have (that reward tribalism) is shaped by ideas that leave us vulnerable to such polarization. Several decades ago their was a revival in academic interest in the ideas of Carl Schmitt who had critiqued liberalism for failing to recognize that politics was first of all about friends and enemies. At that time it was left wingers who promoted Schmitt like Chantal Mouffe but now right wingers openly embrace Schmitt. We need to understand Schmitt’s ideas so as to combat them and put the case for a politics based on dialogue.