Renfrewshire MSP opens up on abuse in parliamentary role

Natalie Don, MSP for Renfrewshire North and West and Minister for Children, Young People and The Promise, has said that in her role she has worried about her own safety.

The comments come after a recent study revealed that almost 500 abusive posts directed towards MSPs were passed to police.

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After the death of MP Sir David Amess, the Scottish Parliament set about ensuring the safety of elected members, including increasing their level of security.

Ms Don said: "As a woman in politics, I would be lying if I said that I don’t often worry about my own safety, as well as the safety of those around me including my staff and my family.

"Some of the comments put on social media are disgusting and it's scary to think that there are real people behind the keyboards deciding to click send on them.

“The unacceptable level of threats and abuse that politicians face is definitely a deterrent to people entering politics.

"In particular, it is becoming more difficult to encourage women and people from other underrepresented groups to stand for election as statistically, they are more likely to be targeted, which should be concerning to all who believe in democracy as decisions are best made when our parliaments are representative of all in society."

Natalie Don at Cairellot Nursery (Image: Mark F Gibson)

A programme which was set up last year has shown that, for the 38 participating MSPs, 461 threats were deemed serious enough to be passed to Police Scotland.

Also according to the report, on average, each MSP was on the receiving end of 12 abusive posts which were reported to police in less than a year.

It is understood there were no direct threats during the trial period – which ran from mid-June last year to the end of March – but abuse generally centred around protected characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation and race.

In total, the tool used by Holyrood officials found almost a quarter of a million – 245,420 – online comments which met the search criteria for threatening or abusive language but, following an investigation by a security analyst, just over 8,000 were deemed to be abusive.

Ms Don went on to say: "At the end of the day, politicians are people doing the jobs that they were elected to do.

"We can all disagree on things, but a level of tolerance and respect is needed for any consensus or constructive working to be achieved.”