A British MP, elected from a constituency with a large Jewish community, has announced that he will not stand again in the elections, after threats from an Islamist group and the arson of his office. This decision by Mike Freer comes as the number of anti-Semitic acts has sharply increased in the United Kingdom, since the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7 and the war in Gaza.
An office burned
The 63-year-old MP is not of the Jewish faith, but is elected in the Finchley and Golders Green constituency in north London, which is one of the places where the most Jews reside in the United Kingdom. In the letter he sent to his voters on Sunday and which was made public late Wednesday by the Conservative Party, Mike Freer, elected since 2010, said he had received threats from the banned Muslims Against Crusades group. by the British government which classified it as a terrorist organization.
The arson attack on his office in late December was “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” he said. These threats and attack, as well as the 2021 murder of Conservative MP David Amess, caused “unbearable stress” for her husband and extended family, he wrote.
“When your husband or your family (…) worries about whether we will come home in the evening, you have to take it seriously,” he said in an interview with the Daily Mail. The killer of David Amess, a member of the Islamic State jihadist group, went to Mike Freer’s office, but he was not present.
Previous dramas that call out
In 2016, Labor MP Jo Cox was killed by a neo-Nazi activist before the Brexit referendum. In 2010, Labor MP Stephen Timms was seriously injured, stabbed by an Islamist extremist while meeting voters in east London.
Mike Freer had already indicated that he wore a protective vest when he met the public. Commons Speaker Lindsay Hoyle has promised better protection for MPs. “We all get death threats. But Mike was definitely targeted,” he told ITV on Thursday.