Kevin Hollinrake has called for police to focus on street crime rather than monitoring social media posts.
The Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities delivered a stark message about police priorities, stating: "You police the streets, not the tweets. And it's ludicrous."
Hollinrake emphasised that police resources should be directed towards making streets safer, rather than investigating online content.
His comments come as reports reveal children as young as nine are being investigated by police over "non-crime hate incidents" in British schools.
Hollinrake said that police resources should be directed towards making streets safer
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Hollinrake said: "You police the streets, not the tweet and it's ludicrous.
"It's the police working hard enough as it is, they've got so many challenges right now. We want to see them on the streets, fighting crime on our streets.
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"We want people to feel our streets are safer. That's what we want.
"If people say things on Twitter, whatever they say, if people don't like it just ignore it. If it's not a crime, it's not a crime, then police shouldn't be involved."
He added: "We did tighten up on it. The shadow home secretary Chris Philp did tighten up on that when he was policing minister.
"He said that we need to go further than we'd gone, which I absolutely support.
Keir Starmer was told to "police the streets not the tweets"
PA"I mean, but I think the message needs to go out loud and clear from the government who are responsible for this now that the police are there to police the streets, not the tweets."
According to information obtained by The Times through freedom of information requests, officers have recorded incidents against primary school pupils for using playground taunts.
In one case, a nine-year-old was investigated for calling a fellow pupil a "retard".
The government appears poised to strengthen reforms around non-crime hate incident policies incidents.
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Two schoolgirls were also recorded in police files for saying another student smelled "like fish".
These investigations have raised concerns about the appropriate use of police resources and the impact on children's development.
The Government appears poised to strengthen reforms around non-crime hate incident policies incidents.
