The justice minister Mike Freer has told the Daily Mail that he will be leaving politics at the next election because of threats to his personal safety.
Freer believes he has been threatened because of his support for Israel. Though not Jewish himself, he represents the constituency of Finchley and Golders Green, which has a high proportion of Jewish residents and where he is well respected. A building at his constituency office was set on fire in December.
The Mail says that Freer, 63, has suffered more than a decade of intimidation and feels “lucky to be alive” after narrowly escaping a confrontation with Ali Harbi Ali, the terrorist who murdered Sir David Amess MP in 2021.
After the killer had been convicted of the murder and a second charge of preparing acts of terrorism, the Crown Prosecution Service said Ali had researched and planned attacks on members of parliament. “This included specific trips to a constituency surgery of Mike Freer MP and the home address of Michael Gove MP.”
In the past decade, Sir David and Labour MP Jo Cox were murdered in their constituencies. Labour’s Stephen Timms was stabbed by an Al Qaeda sympathiser in 2010 but survived.
Mr Freer said he suffered his first serious death threat the following year, when the group Muslims Against Crusades told him to “let Stephen Timms be a warning to you” and urged supporters to target him. A dozen supporters of the group then burst into an event he was holding at North Finchley mosque, with one calling him a “Jewish homosexual pig” who was “defiling the house of Allah”.
In the intervening years he has suffered numerous threats, including abusive notes left on his car and fake petrol bombs placed on the doorstep of his constituency office.
Since the murder of Sir David, Mr Freer’s husband has taken to insisting that he is picked up from the Tube station and is reluctant to let him walk the streets on his own.
Of the three junior ministers at the Ministry of Justice who are in the Commons, Freer has served the longest. His responsibilities include courts and tribunals. Earlier this week, I wrote about the plans he announced to introduce fees for claimants at employment tribunals.
Sarah Sackman, Labour’s candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, thanked Freer for his years of service and said she was “shocked and sorry to hear” about his decision.
Comment
Although there is obviously doubt over whether his party will be in government after the general election, Freer had wanted to remain in parliament. He remains a supporter of Rishi Sunak and will continue to serve until the election.
It seems hard enough to find good people who want to stand for public office these days. It is appalling that any MP should be forced out by death threats.
Appalled rather than surprised by Mr. Freer’s wholly understandable reasons for standing down, I admire him and many another Parliamentarian for continuing to maintain their remarkably open accessibility to their constituents, whether of her/his party political persuasion and convictions or not.
Doing so is brave and merits and merits recognition. Some citizens of my acquaintance declare that the “answer” is easy- just abandon all vestiges of an “open house” policy. When they make such observations in my hearing and presence, however many nodding heads there may be, I make it plain - I hope politely- that I could scarcely agree less. Availability face to face as well as remotely must always remain the name of the government. I have witnessed a number of Parliaments across party divides being abused roundly with scarcely veiled threats for positions they have adopted; even when I have held opposing views to theirs I have much admired their principled stances in the face of that. This is what any true democracy is about since it is that which distinguishes us from those focused on their own factional and blinkered “beliefs.”