What are the lessons for UK politicians from the assassination attempt on Donald Trump?
Are our ministers and MPs safe?
Just hours before the Trump shooting, Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle declared that his biggest concern is the safety of MPs and their staff.
“Security is the thing that keeps me awake at night,” he told The Daily Telegraph, before insisting measures are already being taken “to make people safe”.
Sir Lindsay voiced his fears a week after a bruising UK general election campaign and only days before Westminster’s biggest security operation swings into action for the State Opening of Parliament.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle in his office in the Palace of Westminster.
File Pic: PA
The election campaign saw several politicians tell of intimidation, prompting ex-MP Harriet Harman to claim it was the worst she’d seen in 40 years and to call on Sir Lindsay to hold a special summit on MPs’ safety.
In Pennsylvania, not even the US Secret Service’s finest could prevent a young man taking a shot at the heavily guarded former president and now Republican candidate for the White House.
Here in the UK, our most senior politicians – the prime minister and cabinet ministers such as the foreign, defence and home secretaries – have round-the-clock close protection.
But backbenchers and less prominent politicians do not. They’re unprotected and extremely vulnerable. It’s no coincidence that the two UK politicians killed in recent years, Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, were backbenchers.
Protester hands a P45 form (termination of employment tax form) to former PM Theresa May. File pic: Reuters
Even prime ministers and party leaders who have close protection can be vulnerable, however. In recent years Theresa May and Sir Keir Starmer have been the victims of potentially dangerous stunts during party conference speeches.
A protester throws glitter over Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour Party annual conference. File pic: Reuters
Backing the alarm raised by Harriet Harman, Sir Lindsay also said in a BBC radio interview this weekend he had “never seen anything as bad” as the current level of intimidation against MPs.
Examples during the election campaign, reported in the Sun on Sunday, included:
- Labour’s Jess Phillips shouted down during her victory speech
- Defeated Labour front bencher Jonathan Ashworth forced to seek sanctuary in a church
- Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood targeted by a masked man who disrupted a community meeting
- Labour MP Luke Akehurst besieged in his car by 40 pro-Palestine activists screaming “Zionist scum”
- A window smashed at the office of Labour MP Stella Creasy
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Nigel Farage: “I find it astonishing more MPs aren’t attacked”
Speaking on Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips on Sky News, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who has his own personal protection team, spoke of the incidents during his election campaign.
“Milkshake chucked in my face, cement thrown at me, stones thrown at me,” he said. “And you start to think, can I carry on campaigning?
“The impact of this on all politics as a whole is very real. John Major went around the country, stood on a soapbox campaign, won a general election by doing it. Could a leading politician even do that now?”
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And referring to Sir Lindsay’s fears about MPs’ safety, Mr Farage added: “That focus will be even sharper after what happened in America overnight. I actually find it astonishing that Members of Parliament could walk out across the square and get on the London Underground.
“I find it astonishing that, frankly, more MPs aren’t attacked. That’s how unpleasant so much of the narrative is. It’s become deeply personal. And I’m afraid – and a lot of the public hate this – but if you want people to stand for public office we’re going to have to protect them properly.”
After the assassination attempt on Trump, Sir Lindsay will now surely agree to a summit on MPs’ safety.
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The Pennsylvania gun attack has not just been a wake-up call for politicians in the US, but here in the UK too.