The Labour MP Jess Phillips has called for social media companies to stop hate preachers from profiting from their presence on online platforms, and called for political candidates to be banned from discussing raping politicians.
YouTube stripped the ability to earn money from Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin’s account on Friday, after he joked about raping Phillips.
West Midlands police said it is investigating Benjamin’s comments to establish if an offence has taken place. Benjamin stated in a tweet from 2016 that he “wouldn’t even rape” Phillips, who is the MP for Birmingham Yardley.
In a YouTube video uploaded to his channel more recently, Benjamin said that “with enough pressure I might cave”.
Phillips said on Saturday that there must be a “code of conduct” that would sanction parties if candidates fall foul of the rules. “I would back something that stopped somebody as part of normal political discourse talking about raping another politician, yes,” she said.
Phillips suggested that she may support a Fawcett Society petition calling for a lifetime ban from standing for elected office for anyone who promotes rape or violence. But she also called for social media companies to show “much greater responsibility”.
“The man who has been basically a hate preacher and has targeted me for years – and not just me, he has done it to other women, too – only yesterday was he demonetised on YouTube,” she said. “If you’re neutral in the face of fascism then you’re an appeaser, so yes, they’ve got to do much, much more.”
The Ukip candidate in the south-west for the European elections enjoys a significant following on YouTube – his channel Sargon of Akkad has nearly a million subscribers.
“There’s been an awful lot of talk about whether I would or wouldn’t rape Jess Phillips,” Benjamin said in one of his videos on the platform. “I’ve been in a lot of trouble for my hardline stance of not even raping her. I suppose with enough pressure I might cave. But let’s be honest, nobody’s got that much beer.”
In a speech at the annual conference of the centre-left Labour pressure group Progress in London on Saturday, Phillips blamed people across the political spectrum for a rise in abuse aimed at MPs, saying: “Ninety per cent of the hatred I have received this week was from the left. We should be very, very worried.”
She called for Labour to act progressively and not to attempt to play the Tories at their own game. “We have a real opportunity to be the solution that the country needs and we will never, ever do it if what we do is, instead of seeking to progress, is that we play in the Conservatives’ territory and just seek to conserve and restore,” Phillips said.
