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A minister in Rishi Sunak’s government has said he is quitting parliament after a series of death threats and an arson attack on his constituency office.
Justice minister Mike Freer said he felt that he had avoided murder “by the skin of my teeth” as he announced his plan to stand down at the general election.
Mr Freer – the Tory MP for London’s Finchley and Golders Green seat since 2010 – said it was time to say “enough” as he could no longer put his family through fears for his safety.
The minister, who has pro-Israel views and represents a heavily Jewish constituency, said antisemitism was behind some of the intimidation and attacks on his office.
The MP said he was shocked to learn that Ali Harbi Ali – who went on to kill Southend West MP Sir David Amess – had previously watched his Finchley office.
“There comes a point when the threats to your personal safety become too much,” he said in an interview with the Daily Mail.
Mr Freer said: “I was very lucky that actually on the day I was due to be in Finchley, I happened to change my plans and came into Whitehall. Otherwise who knows whether I would have been attacked or survived an attack. He said he came to Finchley to attack me.”
Conservative MP Mike Freer said there is a history of attacks on him and his office (PA)
(PA Archive)
The MP and his staff started wearing stab vests at public events after learning that Ali had watched his Finchley office before going on to knife Sir David to death during a constituency surgery in 2021.
He said MPs tend to try to “make light” of threats, but that it remained at the back of his mind that he could have been killed.
The minister said he had also received threats from the group Muslims Against Crusades “about coming to stab me” and found “mock Molotov cocktails on the office steps”.
The arson attack on his north London constituency office in December was “the final straw”, he said.
In a letter to his local Conservative association, Mr Freer wrote that it will be an “enormous wrench to step down”, but that the attacks had “weighed heavily on me and my husband, Angelo”.
He won his seat by around 6,600 votes at the last general election in 2019, seeing off a Liberal Democrat. Mr Freer joins a series of MPs who have announced their intention not to contest the next election, which is expected later this year.
Tory former minister Sir Conor Burns said it was a “totally understandable decision”. He tweeted: “The drip drip of hate (not exclusively from people on the other side) and remorseless cynicism will drive more people out of politics.”
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle said he was “saddened” to hear that Mr Freer was quitting – admitting it was a “big challenge” to make MPs feel safe.
Sir Lindsay told ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme said the abuse aimed at politicians is “not acceptable”.
The Speaker said: “I will do whatever I can as Speaker, working with the security, working with the police, working with ministers, to ensure that members are safe, their families are safe, their offices safe. But that is the big challenge at the moment. It really is a threat.”
Labour’s candidate in Finchley and Golders Green Sarah Sackman said she was “shocked” by the reason for his exit, adding: “We should have been able to face each other in the polls based on our ideas and merits.”
She added: “Instead, politics is now so often skewed by violent language, hate and the dangers of social media.”
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