‘Clear interference with the election’: Green Party candidate’s X account suspended hours before polls opened
A Green Party candidate whose X account was suspended just hours before the polls opened on Thursday has claimed the ban is a sign of “election interference”.
Peter Underwood, who stood as the Green Party candidate for East Croydon, woke up on Thursday morning to find that his account and the local Green Party’s accounts had been disabled by the social media platform.
Mr Underwood said: “Suspending a candidate and political parties account just before polling opens is clear interference with the election.
“The day before I retweeted a YouGov poll which said people were tactically voting Labour to get the Conservatives out – I said you can still get the Tories out by voting Green.
“The post had been seen by more than 150,000 people when the account was suspended – which meant all my tweets disappeared.
“I’m not saying that one tweet would change people’s vote but a lot of people were on the fence with this election.”
Mr Underwood received a notification from X – formerly Twitter – to say his account had been suspended due to “violating rules against evading suspension”.
He said: “I have made many appeals over the years to Twitter reporting the most abusive and vile tweets and I always get a response saying the account has not violated any rules.”
Five days later both accounts remain suspended.
He said: “As politicians use social media more and more – particularly in the run up to elections – it is a very serious issue that this is happening.
“If they can do it to a local Green Party account what is stopping them from doing it with any one in an election.”
While advances in social media suggest the UK’s elections are modernising, Mr Underwood is calling for a “fairer” election system to replace the current “outdated” system.
After the votes were counted and results announced in the early hours of Friday morning, Croydon has one Conservative MP in the south of the borough with Labour taking control of the North, East and West.
Across the four Croydon constituencies Labour totalled 79,829 votes, 45.4 per cent of all the votes cast in Croydon but 3.8 per cent down from the last election in 2019.
The Conservatives polled 43,187 votes, down 10.5 per cent since 2019, the Lib Dems totalled 16,645 votes, down by 0.8 per cent and Reform polled 14,153 votes.
The Green Party was the only party to increase its vote share compared with the last election, raking in 18,436 votes, up 7.4 per cent.
Mr Underwood said: “The UK has one of the most disproportionate election systems.
“Across the country Labour got a third of the votes but two thirds of the seats. The Greens got two million votes and only four MPs.
“It’s clear we need a fairer system to reflect how people would vote before the next election. It should be proportional because it is a democracy.”
Looking forward to the council elections in 2026, Mr Underwood said: “For Greens we have got to keep showing that we will keep working for the community and listening to people.
“The general election showed that people are seeing the Green’s as a genuine viable option for voting.”
X has been approached for comment.
Pictured top: Peter Underwood, Green Party candidate for Croydon East (Picture: Peter Underwood)