GLASGOW City Council leader Susan Aitken has revealed that several of her own councillors have been forced to call in the police following threats and intimidation.
The SNP politician says elected members are being put under an “intolerable strain” and have had no choice but to cancel meetings, and change how they move about the city.
Writing in today’s The National Aitken puts much of the blame for the “toxicity” on anonymous trolls using social media and the politicians and others who “feed, who encourage and who amplify these accounts”.
These people are as “guilty as the trolls themselves for the harassment, fear and alarm elected members and council staff going about their jobs are subjected to,” she says.
Aitken says that “given some of the recent incidents there have been in Glasgow and elsewhere in the UK, it is inconceivable that they are unaware of the potential consequences”.
READ MORE: Susan Aitken: This exodus of women is shaming our politics
In April last year, 46-year-old Amanda McCutcheon was convicted for stalking Aitken. She targeted the council leader for three months and in one letter said she thought the politician had “a death wish”.
During the stalker’s trial Aitken said she no longer travels by public transport and never holds surgeries on her own.
The councillor also expresses sadness at the number of female MPs standing down ahead of next month’s election. At the time of going to print around 21 have said they won’t stand, with many of them blaming the abuse they receive.
Aitken writes: “I may disagree profoundly with the political views of Amber Rudd, Nicky Morgan, Justine Greening, Louise Ellman or other MPs prematurely quitting frontline politics. But this isn’t about party stripes and partisanship. It is about decency, democratic representation and being able to go about your business as a politician without fear for your personal safety.”
The council leader warns that the UK is “in a dangerous place.”
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