Diane Abbott was the most abused female MP of the 2017 General Election, new research has revealed.
A report, conducted by Amnesty International researchers, found that the Shadow Home Secretary had received almost half of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs ahead of the General Election.
In the six weeks running up to 8 June, the report found that Abbott received 45 per cent of all abusive messages sent to female MPs on Twitter.
Out of the 140,057 tweets mentioning Abbott’s Twitter handle, @HackneyAbbott, 8,121 tweets were identified as abusive.
Abbott told the report’s authors: “It’s the volume of it which makes it so debilitating, so corrosive, and so upsetting.”
“It’s the sheer volume.”
“And the sheer level of hatred that people are showing.”
However, Abbott said she was not, “entirely surprised” by the results, but said it was, “truly sickening to see it in figures.”
She continued, “These individuals believe it is acceptable to hurl this level of abuse directly at me, knowing there are little to no consequences to their actions.”
Human rights researcher and author of the report, Azmina Dhrodia, also found that Black and Asian female MPs were sent 35 per cent more abusive messages than white MPs.
Abbott has spoken about the abuse she receives many times before. Speaking in July during a Westminster Hall debate, Abbott said, “We are talking about mindless abuse and in my case the mindless abuse has been characteristically racist and sexist.”
“There was an EDL affiliated Twitter account #BurnDianeAbbott, I’ve had rape threats, described as a pathetic, useless, fat, black, piece of s***, ugly fat black b*tch and n*****.”
“N***** over and over again.”
In February, she came out and said that she believes racism and misogyny “puts women off politics” and is a factor in the lack of women in politics.
