Where was Stella Creasy when other mums were being harassed?

Parliament’s ban on the Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok cannot come soon enough. But it’s not just cyber security we need to worry about. Our social media happy MPs clearly need saving from themselves. Matt Hancock might be the parliamentary champion of toe-curling film clips but other MPs are bidding to out-cringe him. 

Labour’s Stella Creasy filmed her response this weekend to a critic who had moved from bombarding her office with emails, to reporting her to social services for exposing her children to ‘extreme views’. Creasy was quickly cleared but the whole situation left her, understandably, angry – not least when police told the MP she should ‘expect to be challenged’ because of the public nature of her role.

I sympathise. As a mother myself, I am quite prepared for my views to be attacked but feel violated on the rare occasions critics have made reference to my children. If I was reported to social services because of my opinions, and these complaints were taken sufficiently seriously to warrant an investigation, I would be furious. Making a jaunty video, complete with lip-synching, head bobbing and finger-wagging would be the last thing on my mind. But then I have never strapped my child to me and taken them into parliament, so what do I know about drawing attention to a cause?

The light-hearted video makes you wonder whether Creasy ever took the prospect of her two young children being placed into care terribly seriously. Sadly, not all women who enter the political fray enjoy such a luxury. Creasy is not the first mother to be reported to the police because of her political views. The women’s rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen (a.k.a. Posie Parker) has been interviewed by officers, as has the Catholic commentator Caroline Farrow. In Farrow’s case, police officers, who cared little about the presence of her children, turned up at her home.

Back in 2018, Kate Scottow, a 38-year-old mum, was arrested at home in front of her ten-year-old daughter. She was held in police custody for seven hours, unable to breastfeed her 20-month-old son. Scottow later had a conviction for persistently using a public communications network to cause annoyance and anxiety to a trans woman overturned. Meanwhile, police told Marion Millar, a 50-year-old mother-of-six from Scotland, that social workers would care for her children when she was questioned over gender critical tweets deemed to be in breach of the malicious communications act. After months of worrying about what would happen to her young autistic twins should she be sent to prison, Scotland’s Crown Office notified her that all legal proceedings had been discontinued.

All these cases received considerable press attention. Yet where was Creasy when Keen, Scottow, Millar and Farrow needed support? After all, these are mothers who, like her, faced politically-motivated allegations that police officers then acted upon.

In her online video clip, Creasy makes the point that women can’t have free speech if they spend half the time worrying that disagreements might lead to their children being taken away. She is right. But she fails to ask how this situation has come about. Online trolls and foul-mouthed critics do not have powers of arrest. They may make horrible, nasty comments but they have no power to summon up police officers and social workers. It is parliament – at the behest of MPs like Creasy – who has given the police powers to investigate hate speech.

Creasy talks about the importance of free speech, but rather than demanding the police stop intervening in verbal exchanges, she calls for more state regulation. Having long campaigned for hate crime laws to be expanded to include misogyny, Creasy – who has made her name campaigning for single-issue policies – now wants harsher penalties for those who make malicious complaints to social services.

It is horrific to think your children might be taken away because of something you have said. Creasy should never have been put in this position. But changing this situation – and ensuring other mums don’t suffer a similar fate – requires undoing legislation that criminalises speech, not adding to it. Laws designed to punish those who cause offence are quickly turned against women who defend their sex-based rights.