Council leader hits back at racist and violent online abuse

The Oldham council boss has responded to a spike in online harassment, claiming that behaviours during council meetings have ‘encouraged, enabled and emboldened online racists and abusers’. In an email directed to all councillors, Coun Arooj Shah called for a “more inclusive and welcoming” politics in Oldham.

The Oldham labour leader linked a recent surge in online hate to a tumultuous Full Council meeting last week, where members were frequently heckled by councillors and a public audience.

But the plea also comes at a moment of heightened awareness of racial discrimination in UK politics. Last week, Diane Abbott was subject to racist comments by a prominent Tory donor and this week saw suggestions that Keir Starmer was ‘not listening’ to Labour race advisor Baroness Lawrence.

Coun Shah wrote: “I am left feeling afraid, for my safety and the safety of my family. I am once again pleading with you to stop this sort of politics. To speak up against the personalised abuse and attacks that come from within your own groups.”

“The acceptance of racial abuse that we are showing in that chamber and in wider politics also impacts outside of the council. The normalisation of jokes about samosas and mango chutney aimed at Asian councillors takes us back to a time thirty of forty years ago when black and minority ethnic people regularly faced these sorts of racist comments.

“I owe it to my community to stand up for what is right and call racism out, regardless of who the perpetrators of it are.”

The council boss, who is Oldham’s first female Muslim leader, made reference to a pledge among council leaders from 2021 to focus local politics on “policy and not personality”. Because, she said, sharing a number of the messages she had