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Your support makes all the difference.Aggressive criticism directed at MPs on Twitter and Facebook who voted to bomb Syria is “not unlike domestic abuse”, a Labour MP has claimed.
Siobhain McDonagh claimed critics of pro-bombing MPs on social media did not really care about Syria and wanted to use the issue as “a stick to beat Labour”.
“The bullying inflicted upon the 66 Labour MPs since we voted with the Government on Syria has been unusual in its intensity. This time it has the added ingredient of social media — where the anonymity of Twitter produces a personalised violence that is not unlike domestic abuse,” she wrote in the Evening Standard newspaper.
The MP, who was one of 66 Labour MPs to vote for the bombing, said emails criticising her as a “warmonger” and anti-Blair graffiti in her constituency amounted to bullying and that women were particularly targeted.
“The irony is they don’t really care about Syria — it’s simply a stick with which to beat Labour. If they did care about the real issue they would target Tory MPs in the same way,” she said.
Ms McDonagh, who represents Mitcham and Morden, said the “abuse” over the bombing was “not legitimate” and that it was part of strategy by left-wing factions to take over the Labour party.
She argued that there should be no compromise with the anti-bombing critics, who she characterised as hailing from the “hard left”.
The vast majority of Labour members are opposed to bombing in Syria, according to polling by YouGov.
A separate non-scientific consultation by the party’s leadership also found that 75 per cent of 107,875 party members who replied to a consultation were against bombing.
The period since the vote has been marked with allegations by MPs that lobbying against the vote has amounted to bullying. Some MPs have even reported death threats, including one made by emoji.
One Conservative MP, Lucy Allan, however admitted adding a death threat to the letter of a constituent who did not make one and then posting it on Facebook.
She defended the action, claiming that it represented the kind of messages she received and that the sentence she added - ‘Unless you die.’- had been in another email she had received on the same day.
Labour's leader Jeremy Corbyn said bombing would produce civilian casualties and play into the hands of Isis.
Shadow foreign secretary Hillary Benn however claimed Labour should support the bombing because of its traditional of internationalism.
Anti-war group Stop the War Coalition branded MPs' decision to vote for bombing "profoundly mistaken and dangerous".
Most Labour MPs and the majority of the shadow cabinet voted against extending bombing of Isis to Syria.
66 MPs however used a free vote on the issue offered by Jeremy Corbyn to side with David Cameron and back an extension of air strikes.
The SNP voted against bombing, as did a small number of Conservatives who had reservations about military action.
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