The Labour MP Tulip Siddiq has said she is “remaining defiant” after her car was vandalised in a targeted attack outside her family home.

Siddiq, the MP for Hampstead and Kilburn since 2015, said the attack happened early on Thursday morning shortly after she returned from the Labour party conference in Brighton.

That morning she woke to find the window had been smashed and a political message scrawled on the roof. Nothing had been stolen. She declined to say what the message was but said: “The wording made it clear that it was a targeted attack.”

“I’m not going to be intimidated, I’m not going to stop doing my job. It has to stop but at the end of the day I’m not going to give in,” Siddiq told the Guardian. “As soon as I saw the car I just thought, I don’t know what you guys are trying to achieve – you’ve underestimated me.”

She said she had received support from across Labour and a call from the Speaker of the Commons, Lindsay Hoyle.

A number of female politicians have spoken out about a rise in abusive language and threats directed at them in recent years. In July, the leader of Oldham council, Arooj Shah, was targeted in a firebomb attack on her car.

Shah was elected the north’s first female Muslim council leader in May. No one was injured in the incident, which damaged nearby property and was condemned by politicians as appalling and cowardly.

In April, a white supremacist was jailed for more than two years after sending hundreds of violent, misogynistic and racist messages to the Labour MP Jess Phillips. Tony Eckersley, 52, from Salford in Greater Manchester, sent Phillips more than 300 threatening messages over nine months including a threat to “have her dealt with”.

“I feel that this intimidation of women has just got to stop. Women are targeted because of the jobs they do, because they’re in the public eye and, in light of everything that’s happened with the Sarah Everard case, it really feels like we need a cultural change,” said Siddiq.

She called on social media companies to take more action to prevent abuse from happening: “Abuse online can manifest into things offline, and we need to nip it in the bud,” she said.

Source: The Guardian 

BDST: 1321 HRS, OCT 04, 2021
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