No more meetings and photo ops, Keir Starmer must act now on online safety, writes Ellen Roome
Dear Prime Minister,
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I am writing following your meeting today with leading lobbyists for the world’s biggest tech companies, and your interview on LBC.
A meeting that comes immediately after you whipped your MPs to vote against raising the age of harmful social media to 16.
A vote you did not attend.
For the second time, you chose not only to instruct your MPs to hold the line, but not to take part in the decision yourself. With the resources available to a Prime Minister, that absence speaks volumes.
We were in the gallery last night. We listened as your MPs repeated scripted lines about acting strongly, and then watched as you pointed to today’s meeting as evidence of decisive action.
I cannot understand what you are waiting for.
For bereaved parents like us, this is not policy. It is reality. While you speak of needing more evidence and more time, we live with the consequences of delay every single day. The empty bedrooms. The silence. The questions that never go away.
Every day of hesitation has real-world consequences. Every delay risks more families joining us.
What is just as painful is the message your actions send.
You found time to meet social media executives from platforms that a jury has ruled are addictive by design, where internal documents show young people were actively targeted.
Yet you have still not found time to meet with us. You have not replied to my letters.
Why are multi-billion-pound companies given a seat at the table, while parents who have lost their children are kept at a distance?
By opting for consultation, you give those same companies time to delay, dilute, and work around meaningful regulation.
We do not have lobbyists or public affairs teams. We are simply parents who have lost our children, trying to make sure no one else has to.
The “evidence” you are waiting for will come in the form of more children’s names.
Other countries are acting. The era of unchecked power for big tech should already be over. Instead, the Government has chosen to hesitate, leaving children exposed while engaging with those responsible for the harm.
Please, no more meetings. No more photo opportunities.
Just act.
It is within your power to do so, and if you do, you will have our full support.
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Ellen Roome MBE is the founder of Jools’ Law and an international Campaigner for Children’s Online Safety.
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