A VETERAN Harlow Conservative councillor has described criticism of one of his colleagues as evidence of “discrimination and abuse”.

Sumners and Kingsmoor Councillor Nick Churchill was referring to an article written by the portfolio holder for Governance, cllr Stacey Seales.

Cllr Churchill said:

Cllr Seales letter published yesterday contained many points covering multiple subjects but rather than creating sensible adult discussion it drew out discrimination and abuse mainly from anonymised commentator’s (aka keyboard warriors) but more worryingly from a senior member of Harlow Labour.

To be clear I am not writing to defend Cllr Seales, she is perfectly capable of defending herself, not that she needs to in any way. 

I am writing this to once again expose the hatred and abuse that we as elected representatives (of all parties) have to put up with in our daily lives, sometimes even causing mental health problems. 

I have to express my disappointment but not surprise that Cllr Durcan chose to make comment criticising Cllr Seales’s letter, more so that he works within the NHS representing nurses and I know he would be the first to jump on discriminatory or abusive comments and raise merry hell, here he is really showing his colours joining in with the other commentators effectively giving credence and encouragement to them. If he is prepared to sink to these depths, he really needs to ask himself if he is really representing the people who voted for him.

The increase of hate speech and abuse against elected representatives has been on the increase over the last few years particularly on social media. It has almost become normal to read comments on Facebook that involve the words ‘I Hate XXXX’ or ‘They are all dishonest/taking bribes to feather their own nests’ and similar accusations and slurs against people who have volunteered to be councillors.

Councillors don’t get paid (they get a small allowance), are expected by some to be available 24/7 (yes, I have been contacted on Christmas day before now). We rarely get thanked for our help if we succeed and blamed and criticised (usually in Facebook) if we don’t. 

Most of the work we do for our constituents we cannot talk about, its confidential and rightly so. But we keep doing it because we asked our constituents to trust us to represent them and they paid us the complement of voting for us to do just that.

So my message to all the haters and keyboard warriors [who will undoubtably enjoy sharing their opinions and most likely being rude and/or abusive below this story or on the Facebook post of it.] is, please think about what you say, it can be very hurtful and upsetting, but as some of you say ‘that’s ok they work for us, they must do what we say’. 

Would you like to read abusive or hateful things written about you? 

And to those that reckon we are all useless and you could do better please join a political party or stand as an independent first thing you will learn if elected is you can’t please everyone no matter how hard you may try.

Regards

Councillor Nick Churchill

Member Champion for Mental Health and Wellbeing

Ward Councillor for Sumners and Kingsmoor

Clarification: We asked councillor Churchill to clarify what he meant by discrimination. He told us it referred to comments regarding the standard of literacy in articles written by councillor Seales.