Diane Abbott has today revealed that police officers only yesterday collected racist and misogynistic letters from her office. Thames Valley Police have also been forced to apologise for an ‘offensive’ tweet directed at Ms Abbott.

The shadow home secretary said she receives threats of “rape and violence on a daily basis” both online and to her constituency office in Hackney, east London nearly every day.

 “Just yesterday the police came to my office to collect some of the letters we receive on a daily basis threatening rape, threatening violence. Hate-filled letters.”

According to The Independent:

Ms Abbott revealed the fresh abuse at a time when there is a national debate over whether misogyny should be brought under hate crime laws.

The government has ordered the Law Commission to carry out a review of whether sex and age should be added to “protected characteristics” that currently cover race, religion, gender identity, sexuality and disability.

On Wednesday, one of the UK’s most senior police officers said she did not want to see misogyny or misandry classed as hate crimes, and called for a return to “core policing” amid a nationwide rise in recorded crime and violence.

Chief Constable Sara Thornton, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), said the public rightly expect “the basics – responding to emergencies, investigating and solving crime, and neighbourhood policing”.

She said police will comply with any new offences approved by parliament but that resources were “stretched” for traditional crime.

“We all think misogyny and misandry are an issue,” she told journalists. “I’m questioning whether a criminal offence is the best way of dealing with what is essentially an issue about how we all treat each other.”

Ms Abbott said she supported making misogyny a hate crime but called for the government to fund police so they are not forced to “pick and choose” what they respond to.

“I am in favour because it is the right thing to do to take the most serious action against hate crime, but we cannot give police more responsibilities without providing the resources,” the Labour politician added, calling Chief Constable Thornton’s comments “robust commonsense”.

“If there is not a new arrangement, we could find ourselves in a situation where every major criminal in the EU can evade justice by coming here. Likewise, our major criminals, homegrown terrorists or those on the run can try to evade our police and security agencies inside the EU,” said Ms Abbott.

This comes as Abbott has also said that Labour will vote down any Brexit deal that “leaves our security and policing in a worse position than before”.

Ms Abbott continued: “Our government’s hard Brexit and its lack of progress on security matters contains a real risk that this country could become a safe haven for terrorists, McMafia-style criminals, smugglers and paedophiles on the run from the EU27.

I would urge both sides to think again, negotiate properly, and reach swift conclusions that can be in place before we leave the EU on 29 March.”

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