Exclusive: Holly Lynch calls for end to hounding of women in public life after letter praised by Harry

The hounding of the Duchess of Sussex shows that MPs must take further action against press bullying, the MP who organised a letter of solidarity for Meghan has said after Prince Harry suggested the act had given the couple more support than their own families had.

Holly Lynch coordinated the cross-party letter from 72 female MPs to Meghan in 2019. On Tuesday, the Labour MP for Halifax said the warning that MPs would not continue to accept an onslaught of negative coverage with “colonial undertones” had clearly not been heeded by the media.

Lynch said she had shared Harry’s fears of “history repeating itself” about the treatment of his mother, Princess Diana.

“Those were some of my concerns when we took the decision to put that letter together,” Lynch told the Guardian. “A lot of media outlets have not heeded those calls for a change, which is why we might start needing to think about a case to government about how we stop hounding women in public life and put them in a position where they feel suicidal.”

A number of MPs are understood to have made preliminary enquiries to see if a House of Commons debate could be held in response to the couple’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. The debate could tackle racism in the media and the mental health strains of persistent press coverage.

In the interview, Harry told Winfrey that he had felt more solidarity from those MPs than from members of his own family. “I guess one of the most telling parts, and the saddest parts, was over 70 … female members of parliament, both Conservative and Labour, came out and called out the colonial undertones of articles and headlines written about Meghan,” he said. “Yet no one from my family ever said anything over those three years. And that hurts.”

The original letter highlighted that many MPs believed Meghan had been subject to racist treatment by the press. “We are calling out what can only be described as outdated, colonial undertones to some of these stories,” it said.

Lynch has previously said Meghan phoned her after receiving the letter and the two discussed the loneliness women can feel in the public spotlight. The letter was sent in the wake of an emotional interview that Meghan gave to ITV when she described the pressure of media scrutiny.

Lynch said: “The letter clearly did not make the significant difference to the conduct of some members of the British press that we had hoped that it would,” she said. “So it is a timely reminder to us to use our voices as women legislators to say – what next?”

She said there needed to be the beginnings of a conversation about further press regulation if there was not a culture change in how sections of the media were operating. “We are legislators – we should be able to work together to find solutions. We have a responsibility to intervene,” she said.

Lynch said parliamentarians were more able to respond to concerns about the conduct of the media, which she could “very clearly evidence”, rather than about the royal family, where the allegations of racism had been made about private conversations involving unnamed individuals.

She said there would now be a discussion among the MPs who signed the letter about what further collective action could be taken in parliament. “We are going to come together to explore what the next steps might be in order to call on the government to take further action to ensure those people with a voice on print and broadcast media are using that influence responsibly,” she said.

The letter was signed by the now children’s minister, Vicky Ford, and the business minister, Gillian Keegan, as well as the former Tory minister Tracey Crouch and MP Lucy Allan.

It was mostly signed by Labour MPs, including now shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, shadow home office minister, Jess Phillips, and shadow business minister, Lucy Powell, and the former shadow home secretary Diane Abbott.

Dodds said on Tuesday she was proud to have signed it and stood by its criticism of how the media had treated Meghan. “That letter was about the treatment of people like Meghan Markle and it has been very concerning very often to see how women have been treated by sections of the media,” she said. “Racism and mental health are issues that must be taken seriously but this is much bigger than the royal family.”

Phillips said she “fell off the sofa” when Harry mentioned the letter but said “it meant something to them, which showed the value of doing this and of speaking out about abuse against all women in public life, particularly women of colour”.

Powell also said she was “surprised but pleased” when Harry mentioned the letter – and that it showed acts of solidarity were worthwhile. “It shows that people need to speak up and call things out when they are wrong, and not stand by. It matters when we do.”

The Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse, who also signed the letter, said she had been “deeply concerned” about Meghan’s statements on her mental health. “I hope that this will be a turning point in the way we think about mental health in the media; there is always a person – a mother, a daughter, a friend – at the receiving end of the commentary.”

source: Jessica Elgot

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