The assassination attempt on Donald Trump shows the need for politicians to respect each other more, according to the Shadow Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell.
He told GB News: “It was, of course, an appalling act of violence and wickedness and I thought that President Biden put it very well from the Oval Office when he talked about the coarsening of debate.
“The fact is that we need to have a very close look at how we conduct our politics and the Speaker of the House of Commons in London made similar comments over the weekend, where he said that we need to respect our politicians more but that politicians need to respect each other more as well.
“I hope that on the back of the elections that we've just been through here where candidates of all parties, particularly women, suffered the most appalling acts of abuse and were often put in very frightening positions, I hope very much that we're going to have a sort of national debate now about how we clean that up, otherwise you just won't get good people coming into politics and that would be a tremendous loss for all of us and for democracy.”
He added: “It's incredibly important that politics remains open. If there ever comes a time when I can't walk through the streets and roads of my constituency, able to talk to people and have an interaction with them, that would be a very, very bad day for democracy.
“We must try and keep it completely open, but we have to be sensible about it as well.
“I think it's very important, though, that we adhere to the old principle that we should play the ball and not the man or woman.
“I hope very much that that's the sort of advice that will guide what needs now to be a debate on both sides of the Atlantic about how you protect democracy and the terms upon which our Democratic debates are conducted.
“As I said, I think the Speaker was very wise in what he said at the weekend and politicians of all different stripes should reflect on what he said.”
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