The councillors facing abuse for standing in local elections

In the hours after he was re-elected, councillor Shazad Fazal scrolled through the messages he had been sent on Facebook. Several were congratulatory - he's a popular figure in the Park ward of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, having served there for Labour since 2021. But there were also more than 200 posts containing vile abuse, including branding him a paedophile and a terrorist, with another asking how many women and children he had sexually assaulted. The Halifax-born politician was also told to "get out of the UK", "speak English" and another poster said he was a "cancer" who needed to be deported. "I have been involved in politics since the age of 17 and I have never seen anything like this, not in any of my previous elections," Fazal told the BBC. Since outing the trolls on his page - who were mainly male but included some women - he has had a wave of support from residents, fellow councillors of different parties and Halifax MP Kate Dearden, who said she was "absolutely appalled". But Fazal's is not an isolated experience. Councillors of all parties and backgrounds have reported a significant increase in the abuse they have faced both in person and online, with last week's Engl