Tory justice minister Mike Freer to quit politics after 'arson attack' and 'death threats for supporting Israel'

Tory justice minister Mike Freer to quit politics after 'arson attack' and 'death threats for supporting Israel'

WATCH: Mike Freer to quit frontline politics

GB News
George Bunn

By George Bunn


Published: 31/01/2024

- 22:27

Updated: 01/02/2024

- 08:40

The MP for Finchley and Golders Green said he was forced to wear a stab vest

Justice minister Mike Freer is to quit frontline politics, citing his pro-Israel stance.

The 63-year-old told the Prime Minister earlier today that he will step down at the election following a string of threats and incidents.


The incidents culminated in an 'arson' attack on his constituency office in Finchley, north London in December.

Freer said he was forced to wear a stab vest when out in public and that he has concerns for the safety of his family as a result of his pro-Israel stance.

\u200bTory MP Mike FreerTory MP Mike Freer has said he wears a stab vest when going out in public, just days after his office was targetted by an arson attackPA

He said his husband Angelo had become "incredibly jittery" after it emerged that Ali Harbi Ali, who murdered fellow MP Sir David Amess, had visited his Finchley and Golders Green constituency office with the intention of killing him.

Freer added December's attack was "the final straw". One email sent after the attack informed him he was "the kind of person who deserved to be set alight".

After "tense" conversations with his husband, he decided he would be stepping down from politics, something he called: "a real wrench."

He added: "Obviously your husband or your family's views have to carry a lot of weight. And when someone worries that, are you going to come home at night? - you have to take that seriously...You shouldn't really have to think, am I going to survive the day?"

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\u200bMike Freer MP has announced he will be stepping down

Mike Freer MP has announced he will be stepping down

PA

Labour's Stephen Timms was stabbed by an al Qaeda sympathiser in 2010 but survived.

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 of them calling him a "Jewish homosexual pig" who was "defiling the house of Allah".

Since the murder of Amess in 2021, his 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.

\u200bMike Freer and Rishi SunakMike Freer and Rishi Sunak PA

Freer, whose constituency is home to one of the largest Jewish populations in the country, says the October 7 attacks on Israel by terror group Hamas have led to an upsurge in anti-Semitism.

With major pro-Palestine demonstrations now taking place in central London most Saturdays, he says many constituents "won't come into central London at all" on those days because of the risk of intimidation and abuse.

He said: "This is very much driven by personal circumstances...It is not a reflection on the Prime Minister, it is not a reflection on the Government. I still believe the Prime Minister can win."

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