Police election advice shows the scale of the security threat facing politicians

On Friday, thousands of general election candidates received a new document with their standard information back, confirming their registration.

The first-ever “joint guidance for candidates in elections” contains safety advice from police and prosecutors calling for would-be MPs not to canvass alone, to remove personal information from the internet, to seek security advice for their homes and workplaces.

The document is part of a beefed-up national security operation heading into the general election, seeing every police force in the UK hold briefings for candidates and feed intelligence reports to the National Police Chiefs’ Council in London.

The moves are a grim but necessary response to the unprecedented rise in death threats and abuse levelled at MPs.

Several politicians, including Heidi Allen, have already announced they will not seek re-election because of safety fears, amid warnings new candidates will be too intimidated to take part in public life.

In the three and a half years since Jo Cox was brutally murdered during the EU referendum campaign, public discourse has become more and more toxic.

Police have confirmed that language used by some politicians themselves has been repeated in hate crimes across the country, while MPs who oppose Brexit have been labelled “traitors”.

Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police commissioner, has described the scale and ferocity of the attacks on MPs as “extraordinary”, saying “polarised opinion” on political and social issues was having an impact.

Prosecutions for harassment and threats against MPs have become too frequent to garner high-profile media attention.

A cursory glance at The Independent’s own archive reveals a recent case where a Brexiteer targeted MPs including Dominic Grieve, Nick Boles, Barry Gardiner and Keir Starmer with vile death threats, claiming he knew where their families lived and would “cut their fucking throat”.

Fortunately, Robert Vidler could be traced as the man behind a barrage of voicemails and abusive phone calls.

But many similar threats come from anonymous accounts online, sent by perpetrators who cannot be identified, and sidestep social media takedowns by creating new accounts.

Many have blamed Brexit for inflaming tensions, while others point the finger at politicians who use polarising language and personal attacks in their own campaigns.

The nature of modern communication has undoubtedly played a part, allowing what would have once been street-level abuse to be spread across the world, and individual politicians be obsessively targeted by groups of fanatics.

While an intensified police operation may provide some reassurance to those knocking on doors across the UK for the coming month, it does nothing to address the root causes of the vitriol.

Until the rising anger and political polarisation that has been worsening in Britain since 2016 is tackled, politicians and campaigners will not be safe.