Abuse is driving women out of politics. If we don’t stop it now, it will change our democracy forever

Female Conservative MPs are standing down at a higher rate than the average for all MPs. An excellent analysis of retirement announcements so far by Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, confirms that a higher share of female MPs originally elected as Tories are standing down, at a younger average age, than of male Tories, or of male or female Labour MPs.

Two possible causes have been canvassed, often by the retirees themselves. One is the level of abuse suffered by MPs, especially on social media and especially directed at women. The other is the alleged shift of the Tory party to the right, with the clearout of One Nation MPs claimed to represent a mirror image of Corbynites’ attempts to deselect so-called centrists.

The reason this ideological purge might affect female MPs disproportionately is that many Tory women were brought into parliament while David Cameron was leader, benefiting from his drive to increase the diversity of Tory MPs, but also from his recruitment of pragmatic, less Eurosceptic politicians. Thus Amber Rudd, Nicky Morgan and Heidi Allen, all first elected in 2010, all in their 40s or 50s, are off.

But the abuse is more important than the drive for ideological purity. I think the argument about polarisation can be overdone. What is striking about the Corbynite drive to deselect insufficiently “pure” Labour MPs is what an utter failure it has been. Every Labour MP who wants to stand again will do so. Even Margaret Hodge, 75, who called Corbyn an antisemite to his face, has been reselected in Barking.

In the Conservative Party, the picture is complicated by the question of Europe. Obviously, there is some correlation between Euroscepticism and small-state views generally regarded as right wing, but it is confused. Many Eurosceptics, including Boris Johnson, are economic populists, all in favour of state intervention. Just because the prime minister says he is a One Nation liberal Tory does not make it untrue.

In any case, there is bound to be some “sorting” as both main parties realign along Leave and Remain lines.

It is true that almost all Tory MPs, of both sexes, who are standing down are Remainers. The picture is not so clear among Labour retirees, but my impression is that many of them are Leavers (Kevin Barron, Ronnie Campbell, Gloria De Piero, Jim Fitzpatrick, Kate Hoey and John Mann).

What matters, though, is that the foul sewer of social media allows so many angry people, who would a decade ago have stewed in private, to make MPs’ lives a misery. As one female MP told Paul Brand of ITV: “We’re all pretty tough and resilient (we’ve had to be to get where we are, to be fair) but it’s just got completely out of hand.” It is hard for MPs to shut themselves off completely from social media. They need to communicate with people, and some of the abuse seems to be flowing into real-life interactions.

We can’t be sure if it is worse than before; there has always been heckling, and politicians have often been confronted by people shouting abuse and throwing eggs. But I can’t recall politicians being howled at when they cross the road to do TV interviews opposite parliament, and it makes me ashamed that MPs, especially those with children, should be made to feel afraid in their homes.

And there is no question that it is a bigger problem for women. There is something wrong with the way some people behave on social media and we need to find better ways of changing it. The health of our democracy depends on it.