Mike Freer, a Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green of almost 15 years, publicly announced Wednesday that he will not seek reelection as an MP and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Ministry of Justice. The announcement followed an alleged arson attack, an alleged murder attempt and multiple death threats against Freer, along with other incidents. Freer said, “There comes a point when the threats to your personal safety become too much.”
The latest incident was an arson attack on the December 24, 2023 at around 19:00 local time. The Metropolitan Police charged Paul Harwood and Zara Karsory with arson with intent following the incident. An email received immediately following the attack claimed he was “the kind of person who deserved to be set alight.” Perhaps the most significant incident before this was his avoiding murder “by the skin of [his] teeth” by Ali Harbi Ali, murderer of Southend West MP Sir David Amess. Following the discovery that Ali had camped outside the Finchley office before going on to murder Amess on the October 15, 2021, the police recommended that Freer and his staff wear stab vests along with other precautions.
Freer claimed that his “first serious death threat” came in 2011 when Muslims Against Crusades told him to “let Stephen Timms [a Labour MP non-fatally stabbed in 2010 by Roshonara Chondry, who claims she was radicalised by al Qaeda YouTube content] to you.” Supporters of the group then attended an event he was holding at North Finchley mosque and called him a “Jewish homosexual pig.” While Freer, himself, is not Jewish, he has supported Israel in the past and represented a largely Jewish constituency. He has also had “mock Molotov cocktails” left on his office doorstep, abusive notes on his car and dozens of death threats.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Freer discussed the weight he placed on his family and his husband’s experiences in the decision to quit politics, adding that they were left worrying if he was going to come home at night. He said MPs sadly all accept a level of abuse as a “par for the course” of the career, but added: “You shouldn’t really have to think, am I going to survive the day?”
When asked if he thought he was being targeted because he represented a largely Jewish constituency, he said: “I can’t draw any other conclusion… standing up for my constituents on antisemitism and on Israel has to be a factor.” Freer has been an outspoken supporter of Israel in the present Israel-Hamas conflict, which he believes has been the motive for some of the abuse he has faced.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle, in conversation with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, said he is saddened that Freer is quitting. Hoyle added that it is “not acceptable: that “we all get death threats.” He went on:
I want us to have a nicer politics within the House. That’s why I made the statement yesterday, to try and turn down the heat of each [Prime Minister’s Questions]… I will do whatever I can as Speaker, working with the security, working with the police, working with ministers, to ensure that members are safe, their families are safe, their offices safe. But that is the big challenge at the moment. It really is a threat.
Labour’s London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden Anne Clarke has been forced to apologize after appearing to celebrate his resignation in a since-deleted tweet. Ex-Labour minister Denis MacShane claimed Freer’s exit from the Commons was actually due to the Conservatives’ poor performance in recent polls, but Freer’s statement maintains that this is not the case and Freer was expected to retain his seat.
A Downing Street spokesman said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was “extremely saddened” to hear that he “feels he is no longer able to serve his local community.” The spokesman also said that Sunak called the “vitriolic hatred” Freer faced “clearly deeply distressing” and an “attack on British democracy.” This follows long-standing concern about the effect the abuse of politicians has on democracy.
