MPs appear stuck in digital echo chambers, new research from Sky News shows.

A data analysis of their follower networks on Twitter reveals their digital relationships are just as partisan as those displayed in parliament.

We also found that almost half of MPs on Twitter only follow 10 colleagues or fewer from other parties.

Image: None of the four main party leaders follow each other

How did we do it?

Sky News analysed the accounts of all MPs on Twitter, some 585 or 90% in total of those elected to the House of Commons, with the data science software Graphext.


It took public information from the Twitter accounts in July 2019 and mapped the users automatically according to who follows whom.

Without knowing what political party they belong to, the analysis still mirrors that division in the digital sphere.

To help you understand the visualisation below, MPs' pictures are bigger or smaller depending on how relevant they are within the community.

Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn, Ian Blackford and Jo Swinson - leaders of the four biggest parties - set the standard by refusing to follow each other.

The prime minister himself is also largely ignored by some of his fiercest rivals - with only a few dozen Labour MP followers, and only two from the SNP and one from Sinn Fein.

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He even follows his successor Theresa May - but she does not reciprocate.

But Mr Johnson does not follow an MP from any other party - apart from those he followed before they quit the Conservatives, and the DUP's chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson.

Within the parties themselves, 84% of politicians Labour MPs follow are from their own party, while in the Tories that drops slightly to 80%.

But there are some MPs keener than others to hear their opponents' views.

On the Conservative side, those who follow the most number of MPs from other parties are party chair James Cleverly, minister Matt Warman and backbencher Andrew Rosindell.

Meanwhile Commons deputy speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Wes Streeting and Luke Pollard showed the most cross-party interest from the Labour side.

In fact, Sir Lindsay - who is running to replace his boss John Bercow in one of parliament's top roles - follows more Conservative MPs than colleagues from his own side.

That might suggest he is keen to be seen to be listening to them, in a bid to hoover up their votes.

Chris Bryant and Eleanor Laing trail Sir Lindsay in the ranking of those also in the race who follow most MPs from other parties.

But what about the politicians MPs are most keen on hearing from?

The top five most followed are Boris Johnson, former prime minister Theresa May, Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson, shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer and home affairs select committee chair Yvette Cooper.

Mr Corbyn misses out on the top spot - despite having double the number of followers as Mr Johnson - and is only the 38th most followed politician by MPs.

Nine of his Labour colleagues do not follow him. For Mr Johnson, 19 of his fellow Conservative MPs do not follow their party leader.