Dear Matt and Stockton Conservative Councillors,
I am writing to you as a constituent and as a human being.
I am deeply deeply worried about the social media you are posting on Facebook. I am concerned that physical harm will come to the Labour Councillors you are targeting with these posts. Ultimately, that vote was about the difference in what type of inquiry should be held to investigate grooming gangs. On one hand, you support a national inquiry, on the other Labour supported a targeted inquiry which would look into the gaps in previous inquiries and not take anywhere near as long as a national inquiry.
No political party in the UK supports grooming gangs. To imply otherwise, as your posts seem to be doing, will do harm. The fact alone that the comments on your posts are full of people suggesting these Labour Councillors are paedophiles and “need their hardrives checking”, is harmful. There is zero evidence of this, and you are not moderating these comments.
All it takes is one person to see these posts and interpret them as these Labour Councillors support grooming gangs and it could end in tragedy. Is that what you want? I really find it hard to believe that you do.
A Labour councillor has already had a resident show up at her home and verbally assault her, after commenting on one of these posts saying they knew where this councillor lives. This could have been so much worse. After this happened, you posted again about how she specifically had voted.
You are in public office, and this position means you should be responsible. This is not responsible. Putting your colleagues’ safety at risk is not responsible. You know how emotive this issue is, and you are using it to score cheap political points, at the expense of the physical safety of your colleagues, and also at the expense of the young girls who were sexually abused, who you all claim to care so deeply about.
In an era where multiple MPs have been murdered in the last decade, you should know how serious this is. Unlike MPs, councillors do not get the same level of security or protection that MPs do. They are so much more vulnerable if someone did try to assault them, or worse.
Will you feel guilt if someone came to one of their surgeries with a weapon because they genuinely believe that their councillor supports paedophiles? Would you feel guilt if a councillor’s spouse was attacked? Would you feel guilt if a councillor started getting death threats? Is that a price you’re willing to pay to lose slightly fewer votes to Reform?
I am asking you to do the right thing. Delete the posts. Correct the record. Apologise.
And do this before someone gets physically hurt, and not in reaction to it.
We don’t want our own local Jo Cox. We don’t want our own local David Amess. Yours sincerely,
Susan Davey
