MPs say death threats a daily reality in ‘increasing climate of abuse’

Labour MP Jess Phillips says she received more than 600 rape threats in one night. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Labour MP Jess Phillips says she received more than 600 rape threats in one night. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing/Getty Images MPs say death threats a daily reality in ‘increasing climate of abuse’ As Ann Widdecombe’s death raises concerns over security, politicians reveal extent of problem Jess Phillips has received so many death threats she has to remind herself not to be blase. One night she received more than 600 rape threats. In 2019, a man forced his way into her office. The same year a white supremacist sent her a picture of Jo Cox, her friend and fellow Labour MP who was murdered in 2016, accompanied with the message: “I will have you dealt with.” “This is not academic to me; it is something I face every day,” says the MP for Birmingham Yardley. “You learn to cope with it, but it does cause terrible anxiety. For me, I feel guilty about the people who work for me, my kids, my family.” The security and safety of all MPs – and the very real threats they face – has come back into sharp focus this week after it emerged that counter-terrorism police were taking over the investigation into Ann Widdecombe’s death. In recent days parliamentarians have spoken about the impact of threats on their lives. Nigel Farage revealed he is receiving more than 300 threats a month, with Reform UK recording 1,577 threats against their leader since February. The trade minister Chris Bryant said he had received countless death threats, while in the Commons on Monday the longstanding Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin said MPs were “more likely to meet a violent death than a member of His Majesty’s armed forces or a member of the British police forces”. The former victims’ minister Alex Davies-Jones said threats were a weekly occurrence for most MPs she knew. “It changes how you live your life. You’re constantly on alert and always looking out for danger,” she said. “I think it’s definitely got more severe. It feels like increasingly some members of the public feel they can openly harass and be quite aggressive.” Another male MP said they now avoided pubs after being aggressively cornered while having a drink with his wife. “Someone just launched at me over Gaza, saying that I had taken part in a genocide,” they said. “It’s just not a reasonable discussion, it’s just an attack.” View image in fullscreen The Conservative MP David Amess was murdered by an Islamic State sympathiser in 2021. Photograph: Chris McAndrew/PA The fear is not hypothetical. In the last decade, two MPs have been murdered – Cox by a far-right extremist in 2016 and the Conservative MP David Amess by an Islamic State sympathiser in 2021 . MPs reported 4,064 crimes to the Metropolitan police’s parliamentary liaison team between 2019 and 2025, with the number of alleged offences increasing from 364 in 2019 to 976 in