A Sheffield councillor has spoken out against the ‘huge rise’ in racism he and his colleagues have faced on social media in recent years.

Minesh Parekh, a Labour councillor for Crookes and Crosspool, said he first began to get hateful comments when he stood for election in 2022.

“People feel particularly enabled by social media and that’s absolutely got worse in the last year or two.

“I think people feel enabled when the Union Flag is being raised on the streets across the city, when 100,000 fascists march on the streets of London.”

Some of the comments left on Cllr Parekh’s profile include ‘Deport them!!’ and ‘sharia law is coming to this city’.

Reports of hate incidents have been on the rise across the country over the last year.

Figures from the Home Office show the number of recorded hate crimes in England and Wales, excluding the Metropolitan Police (MPS), rose by 2% in the year ending March 2025.

There was a 6% increase in race hate crimes and a 3% increase in religious hate crimes.

This was despite a decrease in violent hate incidences over the same period.

Evidence also shows that social media companies are failing to properly police these comments on their platforms.

A report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate published last year found that Instagram ignored 926 out of 1,000 flagged abusive comments targeting American female politicians during the 2024 election cycle.

Cllr Parekh said he knew he wasn’t alone in the abuse he faces.

“If it was just about me, that’s fine. I can deal with it.

“It’s unpleasant, but I will deal with it.

“I know that if something’s happening to me, that’s happening a hundred times worse to someone who doesn’t have the voice.”

He added that one of the reasons he decided to raise this issue publicly was because the comments he and his colleagues have received were ‘designed to intimidate’.

“If we are successfully intimidated and do quiet down, it leads to a much worse society for each of us.

“But I think it points to how empowered and free racists feel that they can do this to people.”

His remarks came days before Reform MP Sarah Pochin was accused of making racist comments, triggering a debate about how mainstream divisive rhetoric has become.

During an appearance on TalkTV on Monday, she declared that adverts featuring black and Asian people ‘drive me mad’.

Cllr Parekh highlighted how harmful this type of language is to those targeted by it.

“There are hateful actors who are trying to break down community cohesion and pit communities against each other.

“That’s deliberate, because they see it as an easy way to turn people against each other.

“It’s regressive. It’s obviously toxic.

“And I think if they win, we’re looking at a much worse country where everyone is worse off, particularly people of colour, particularly migrants who are already subjected to some of the most hostile policies.”

“There has been a breakdown of the social contract.”