Elena Bunbury: “I’m not changing who I am. If you don’t like it, don’t vote for me”

That night Elena Bunbury went to bed contentedly. She had been in the audience for the filming of the BBC’s Question Time in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, and was invited to express a brief opinion on Brexit. It was a bit of a thrill for her as a politically engaged 21-year-old, but not of much interest to anyone beyond her proud mother, she thought.

The next morning Bunbury woke up to hundreds of messages on social media, variously calling her a “stupid slut”, threatening to kill her or asking her to appear on national television news. “It was wild,” she says. “So unbelievably unexpected.”

What follows is a tale of our feverish, changed times. Bunbury had made the mistake of being a young woman with views