Writing to my MP

[Appalonia]

Has anyone had a problem contacting their MP using the form on the Write to Them website? I wrote to my MP yesterday about an issue relating to gender id. You have to wait for an email confirming your email address before your letter is sent to Them. This should take 15 minutes. I did this yesterday at 4 and still haven't received an email from them.

My question is, do you think it's possible that an actual human has read my letter and has decided it's 'transphobic' and refused to send it? I would have assumed that it was an automatic process but I'm a bit suspicious after that letter Taiwo wrote last week about Kathleen Stock/ LGBAlliance went public!

Hope this makes sense, any thoughts?

My MP doesn't respond to me any more. She has been very helpful in the past on health related issues, but anything about women's rights etc is ignored. I don't know if it is censorship by the back office staff or if she reads the correspondance and ignores it.

Mine doesn't either. She responded to my first email with a load of Stonewall guff,and when I wrote back,picking her arguments apart,and asking questions about safeguarding and equality impact assessments,I never heard another thing.
But,she always put out a lot of stuff about how she'd met with Mermaids,Stonewall,ect,on SM.And she was behind a group that was trying to vote in self ID. That has now stopped and she seems to be concentrating on the actual issues that affect her large rural conservative constituency.

My MP has always replied to me in the past. He's generally a good egg. I wrote to him about the Keir Starmer and cervix debacle and he hasn't responded. At first I thought fair enough, it's conference week, I'll wait a bit, but now I think the decision not to reply is conscious.

It does make me wonder who is handling the emails and who actually writes the replies.
She was completely unavailable all through the lockdown, which I thought was odd as I am sure her staff could have worked from home.

Same here. My MP replied within 2 days to my issues that were not related to women’s rights. My emails regarding women’s rights were ignored. I tried to see her at her surgery but she was ‘too busy’, then covid. I’m not sure how these MPs think it’s ok to ignore their constituents, but I’m not clear how I can complain.

I wonder how common this is? MPs should represent their constituents, not pick their own agenda.

Could Nolan do a podcast on this? It might be worth flagging it. If certainly seen a pattern on here that GC questions are given the stonewall line at first then ignored. It would be interesting to know if that was coming from the top, the MP or the staffers.

Mine always replies. I send an email direct not via a website and he replies by letter with the occasional email.

I didn’t vote for him but I can’t fault his courtesy in engaging with me. He’s also taken on the PCC, who I also contacted, about our police force and stonewall. I was heartened he referred to them as a “lobby group”

My MP has never replied to my emails.

Isn’t it compulsory for MP’s to provide some form of reply? I’m sure I read that in the conservatives for women emails. I’ve received the ‘we got your email’ email, but never a reply over the last several years.

I’ve never followed up on complaining about that though. Addressing this with schools/signing petitions/donating/looking into candidates views (no answer either so ballot spoiler mostly)/being up to date so can explain to friends and so on is all I have head space for I’m afraid. (Kids send needs take up all my writing to mp space -which I’ve had replies about from him).

So I assume whoever reads my gc emails deletes them or dumps in a ‘terf’ pile.

I generally get an auto responder saying that because covid my MP is super super busy and can't do anything about anything anymore

Occasionally an angry you-horrible-bigot type of response.

My conservative MP and MSP have agreed with my worries. bodies with vaginas and previously trans women in women's sport.

I have used that site recently and got an acknowledgment then an actual reply from my MP (wasn't regarding anything likely to be considered contentious though). If you haven't had the email to confirm, then it won't have been sent to your MP yet.

You can look up MPs emails addresses here and email them directly - obviously no idea whether you will get a response but should remove any possibility of someone else intervening and failing to send it on your behalf.

members.parliament.uk/members/Commons

Mine always replies (not just the initial auto response to say the email was received, but a proper letter), but it can take a very long time - weeks or more, sometimes I've almost forgotten I wrote by the time I get the reply! But I guess they must get a LOT of emails and letters, as well as having an their other work to deal with... So I certainly wouldn't expect a reply the next day!

@Appalonia it’s better to email the MP directly. It’s usually [email protected] but you should be able to check on their website.

I work for an MP.

To answer a few other questions: no, there is no obligation for MPs to reply. They can chose to ignore emails and letters if they like. (They shouldn’t but some do)

It can take a week to so to reply. MPs generally get over 100-200 emails a day, of which half might be constituents emailing with issues/questions. You need to provide your name and address to prove you’re a constituent or they won’t reply.

Many MPs respond by letter which takes longer. Responses are likely to be drafted by staff, and then checked and singed by the MP.
Urgent casework (evictions/visas/benefits etc) will get dealt with more quickly than policy questions about gender issues.
Some MPs will wait until you chase for a response (which is rubbish system).

If you don’t het an auto response then your email may not have got there. Parli emails have spam filters which can block stuff that’s not spam. (MPs can’t change this).

If you send a physical letter it will be security screened (for explosives etc) so it takes longer than normal post.

Mine responds to email by letter, which seems unnecessarily costly to me.

Never agrees with me and never deviates in any way from the party line.

Could Nolan do a podcast on this?

good idea. MPs not replying to GC constituents and MPs sending Stonewall responses, following a Stonewall 'style guide' on words, terminology and trotting out Stonewall mantras; 'TWAW', 'most marginalised' etc

email the MP directly. It’s usually [email protected]

You need to provide your name and address to prove you’re a constituent or they won’t reply.

Good tips that every FWR needs to know - thanks @LatteToday

I usually get a 'we received your email' reply and then a fuller answer. But I emailed about gc issues last week and have had no response at all, not even the automated 'we received your email' response.

I've written to 2 most three times in total.

The first one ignored me completely

The secund ignored my first email.

Then I got a short response containing a link to a statement full of the usual most marginalised bollocks that didn't respond to any point I made. Then he he ignored the response to his email where I pointed out that none of the questions had been answered and that he needed needed look into the advice schools were receiving as much was neither legal and all was a safeguarding issue.

I have kept emails so when the shit hits the fan and they all come out the woodwork claiming no one had raised it or they had no idea , I can prove otherwise as I'm sick of the lies

Latte would you agree that if the local MP for whatever reason doesn’t respond to unfailingly polite correspondence after a few directly emailed or posted letters, then a tactic could be to take it wider and higher and continue to write to the local MP plus copy in the relevant Minister and the Commons and the Lords select committee chair, relevant regulatory body, NHS lead, university lead, local authority schools’ lead, patient charity, sports association, peer support group, prisoners and their families charity, women’s and children’s charities or whoever else is relevant to the specific aspects of the issue being raised? It seems like the time is now to do this anyway to help to chip away at organisational capture by encouraging as wide a group with power as possible to see the problems that we know women face.

This whole broad area of issues of gender identity politics having a detrimental impact on women’s rights seems to be very transferable beyond individual cases and to be of national relevance, so a broader base of correspondence would seem a reasonable platform to raise them on if the MP for whatever reason doesn’t engage or represent their constituent fully on this.

Plus would copying any relevant others make it feel a bit harder for the MP to ignore letters or for their staff to not pass on these letters, if that’s what has been going on?

MPs do have a huge Covid workload so I can appreciate that they or their offices could be slower to respond. Repeatedly not engaging at all seems to be unreasonable given the number of female constituents who could be directly affected.

I am guessing that many of these questions get sent to Labour/LibDem/Green MP's, who of course are extremely busy and don't have time to answer them?
Or, in the words of Jess Phillips and David Lammy, these issues never come up, questions are never asked, so, they get "fielded" by office staff and are consigned to the bin or "junk" mail.

It’s the only parliamentary institution we’ve got so we can’t just give up on engaging with it.

And actually don’t opposition parties have less money to work with and to fund staff etc like for carrying out their own research? Or maybe I misunderstood that.

I’m not saying several MPs aren’t deliberately hiding on this issue, but two things can also be true at the same time..

Helen Joyce spoke a bit about her recent political contacts at a Liberal Voice for Women event:

Interviewer: We know that there's lots of copies have been sent out to influential people. Have you had any direct feedback?

Helen: Yeah, I have. I've been in and out a bit into the House of Commons and the House of Lords, and I have had people say to me "Oh my god, you know, I got it from Sex Matters and I've read it, and this is serious". And there have been some really, really important people I know have read it and are trying to decide what they need to do about it. So if anyone here funded one of those copies, I mean, you know, thank you very much. It was actually a very influential campaign.

I think there were people who perhaps didn't quite get their copy because, perhaps, the staff in their constituency office didn't quite understand what they were meant to be doing with it, but now people know they're meant to have received it.

I've also had MPs say to me, "I didn't get my copy, uh, somehow it didn't turn up and, you know, I've looked into it and I think I know who threw it out", and I've just given them another copy. So, you know, we're getting there. We're getting there one lawmaker at a time.

And lots of women on here and elsewhere have written to their MPs to encourage them to read it and raise their own points which has been great. All of it is brilliant!

I echo the need to put your full name and address in any emails you send.

When I originally emailed in I hadn’t included my address, and was emailed back by one of his staff asking for my details as otherwise my MP “couldn’t respond” as they needed to confirm I’m their constituent.

The response I got back (a few days later) was a pretty stock answer which clearly toed their party’s line, but I have to hope that at least he read my points. It was sent via a first class letter - ridiculous expense for answering an email.