Jo Cox Civility Commission: marking the first anniversary of our call to action

Abuse and intimidation of our elected representatives – including violence towards them – is one of the biggest threats to our democracy in the UK. Because of this, we launched the Jo Cox Civility Commission in February 2023 to identify implementable solutions to address abuse and to promote civility in our politics.

A year ago today, we launched the Call to Action with our 28 recommendations for how to tackle abuse and intimidation of elected representatives. Today we are publishing a new progress report, outlining where change has taken place in response to our call for action, and highlighting where further action is needed to address abuse in our democracy.

This report shows the significant progress that has already been made, and out of our 28 recommendations, there are seven that have been fully adopted and a further 12 that are in progress to being adopted.

Collaboration and partnership has been key to achieving this progress towards making our politics safer. We are pleased to have forged strong partnerships with many organisations across different sectors, and have worked particularly closely with the Home Office’s Defending Democracy Taskforce, the Local Government Association (LGA), the Parliament Security Department (PSD), the Fawcett Society and Centenary Action.

We are also pleased to have had engagement across the political spectrum to improve respect between and within political parties.

It is clear that there is still a long way to go. The recent elections indicated how common abuse now is and the impact that it is having on the way that people engage with politics.

As well as continuing our work to secure the adoption of all 28 recommendations, it’s important to recognise that these recommendations are themselves only a starting point and only part of the solution to the problem of abuse towards elected representatives.

The recommendations are not designed to be a ‘box ticking exercise’. In fact, some of them are inherently challenging to measure. The point is not for us to congratulate ourselves that our recommendations have been achieved. The aim is for a safer and more inclusive politics, where abuse is no longer normalised as part of participation.

Achieving such large scale culture change and effectively addressing the root causes of abuse and intimidation will take considerable time and effort. 

We cannot make further progress without your support. Please consider supporting our vital campaigning with a donation, so that we can continue our work and move us closer to ending abuse and intimidation in politics. Thank you.