International Perspectives On Constituency Office Safety

After a decades-long political career in the United Kingdom, on January 31, 2024, Conservative Member of Parliament Mike Freer announced he would not be running for re-election. In his announcement, which came five weeks after the firebombing of his constituency office, Freer cited ongoing threats to his personal safety as precipitating his departure. In this interview, Freer recounts the events that led up to his early political retirement, outlines some of the personal security precautions he employed while a high-profile target, and offers advice to Canadian parliamentarians who are concerned about their personal safety in their homes, constituencies, and constituency offices.

Interview with Mike Freer

Mike Freer served as Member of Parliament in the London constituency of Finchley and Golders Green from 2010-2024.

CPR: Can you tell us a little about your career in politics?

Mike Freer: I’d been involved in the Conservative Party for years, and was elected to my local council (Barnet Council) in 1990 when Margaret Thatcher was still the MP for this constituency. Eventually, I became leader of the council. I know we’ll be talking about security threats while I was an MP, but even as council leader, I received threats and people would follow me around in grocery stores. But that’s just part of the job.

I was selected by my party to contest a seat in 2005, but I was unsuccessful. And then, in 2010, I was elected in Finchley and Golders Green – Margaret Thatcher’s old constituency.

As an MP, I would frequently meet with my constituents at constituency surgeries (public meetings where constituents can pose questions to MPs), often in a room in the local library, and I would meet people as I was out and about in the community. People would recognize me and talk to me or perhaps go into a bit of a diatribe about something.

But the first instance when I truly feared for my safety was when I was targeted by Muslims Against Crusades, a group which has been banned in the UK.

I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but that group had posted on its website that I would be at a local mosque and made reference to another MP who had been stabbed at a surgery the previous year.

There was a big crowd of protesters outside the mosque and a group of men, who were not my constituents, forced their way in. They were being abusive as I was speaking with constituents. One of them called me a “Jewish homosexual pig,” which is rather funny because I’m not Jewish – I just represent the constituency with the highest proportion of Jewish people in the UK. Eventually the mosque security had to escort me to a secure location in the building.

And then, some years later, I had a run-in with George Galloway. Are you familiar with George Galloway? He’s a vitriolic critic of Israel, to put it kindly, and for some absurd reason the BBC programme Question Time was due to have him on their show live from Finchley and Golders Green – the constituency with the largest Jewish population in the UK. It was provocative. And I complained about it in the press.

Mr. Galloway’s supporters took the controversy and made a big spectacle out of it, and as a result my profile was much higher among a certain segment of people. That’s when the hate and threats over social media dramatically increased.

More recently, I was targeted by Ali Harbi Ali, the man who killed Sir David Amess at a constituency surgery. Ali had visited my constituency office the month prior, armed and with the intent to harm me, and it was just a fluke that my plans had changed and I was not there when he was.

With the murders of Jo Cox and David Amess, the death threats I received, and the recent fire bombing of my office, I had realized that I had had enough and that it was time to leave a job that I absolutely love. Actually, it was my husband Angelo who realized it. He was beside himself with worry about me continuing on, and I felt it was unfair to put him through more.

CPR: That is incredibly troubling to hear. I know Canadian parliamentarians are well aware of the tragic deaths of Jo Cox and David Amess, as they’ve spoken about them while discussing security in our parliaments. Can you tell us how the incidents you experienced affected your own sense of safety and security, both on and off the job?

MF: After the David Amess incident, I was told by the Counter Terrorism Team that I’d been a target. That’s when I met with the Home Office. I have to say they were amazing. They literally were at my house within two days and did a full survey. All the windows were replaced. I live in an Edwardian home and there is some beautiful stained glass they wanted to replace with reinforced glass. I said “Enough is enough. I still have to live here. I don’t want to live in a closed off box or a panic room.” (Laughs) The door was strengthened. There were new security lights, etcetera, etcetera. You feel safe, but of course you become aware that every room has a motion detector and there’s a panic button.

I became very conscious of my surroundings because the police provided situational awareness training to me. For example, I used to sit in the top of the bus, but I was told to sit close to the door to have a route to escape. At constituency surgeries in the local library, I had to stand in front of the door in the room I used. I had been using a running app to track my progress, but the police told me: “We can see your running route. Where you start, where you stop, and when you go.” I had to vary my route.

They gave me a GPS-linked device with direct links to police. I could activate it if there was an immediate danger.

I remember what drove it home, though. I was quite used to being stopped on the street because I’d been an MP for quite some time and I had been the councillor, so I was quite well known.

But, soon after the murder of David Amess, someone came up to me and said: “Oh, Mr. Freer?” In the past I simply would have stopped, said yes, and chatted. But I noticed after a couple of minutes, I had instinctively stepped back from the person to keep distance between us.

And that shook me. I hadn’t really noticed I was doing it.

Now, I and other MPs were going out to events with a stab vest on. You know MPs… we suffer from gallows humour. We wear these things and say, “Oh, so they want to come at me? Let them try.” But you know, it does have its toll. And not just on the MPs. But on their families.

I noticed how jittery my husband was becoming. He was getting much more agitated about my safety.

If I was 15 minutes late getting home, he’d panic and start asking “Where are you?” And after the fire, he really said, “You know, you’re done. That’s it. I’m not putting up with this anymore.”

After the fire, I thought, “Yeah, OK, fire. So what?” Then I’d go to bed, sleep reasonably well, get up in the morning, and by 10:00 or 11:00 in the morning, I was falling asleep. I was absolutely exhausted from the stress.

The office was completely unusable. If you’ve seen the photographs of the office you’ll know one of our offices basically melted. The ceiling melted. The computers melted. The phones melted. The smell of the smoke lingered and everything you touched was just filthy. It took us about three months to get up and running again.

And you know, you kind of laugh and joke about it. At my age you kind of shrug it off and say, “I hope we get some hot firemen.” But then, after the dust settles, and all the soot settles. You start to realise that it does grind you down.

And it’s not just me. Five MPs came to tell me that they had stalkers who were in prison in the week after I announced I would not be standing in the next election. That was only in one week. This is a wider problem that we may realize.

CPR: Can you tell me a little bit about your constituency office? Had you taken any extra safety precautions before this happened? Does the parliamentary security offer a security audit or is that something that would be private that you would pay for?

MF: The Finchley and Golders Green Conservatives own the building that housed my constituency office and Margaret Thatcher had used it previously, so it already had some enhanced security features.

But every MP has the ability to have a general security package, if you like, which includes an intrusive alarm, panic buttons, CCTV, and entry phone systems. Some MPs who have shop fronts can get a shutter that comes down. You’ve got your standard systems and then they will do bespoke tweaks if you have specific needs the standard doesn’t quite meet or if you are slightly higher risk.

Because we’re on a main road, the entry system didn’t really work because we couldn’t hear them. We got into the habit of just opening the door, which was no good if you had a madman at the door. Eventually, because we had a big enough entrance hall, we had an air lock door. We’d let a person in remotely, then they would step into like a little lobby and talk to my staff through a door. So, it was very secure.

We’d also make sure that if someone wanted to come to the office, if they were not on the electoral register, they would have to show some proof that they lived in the constituency.

CPR: While the threats you received were directed at you, I wanted to ask about what your constituency office staff experienced. Obviously the fire bombing of your office deeply impacted them, but were they with you during constituency surgeries? Once you experienced incidents like the one at the mosque or following the Amess murder, did your staff or their families express concern about them continuing to work for you?

MF: We always asked them if they were comfortable when we were in public and if there was a particular threat, we would send them home.

If we were doing a street-based surgery, we would say “Are you happy doing this?” If they said no, we’d ask someone else in the team. At the end of the day, if no one was happy doing it, then we’d have to find a different way of engaging.

I would do constituency surgeries in different neighbourhoods and I used to advertise that I would be on certain streets on a specific day on my social media. But after the threats I stopped doing that. I would just send little postcards to houses I planned to visit so no one aside from my constituents would know that my staff and I would be there.

My whole approach was, “You are not my bodyguard. If something happens, you will run. You’re not there to get between me and whoever is coming for me because I will be running. I’m not going to stand there and be brave. I will be running.”

They had stab vests available to them as well.

People forget that staff are the ones who see the email. Although I personally saw every email, a lot of MPs have their emails filtered and it’s just the staff that see the rude e-mails. The staff are the ones who open the front door and they’re never quite sure who’s on the other side of the front door. They answer the phone and hear someone ranting, raving or being abusive.

After the fire, someone that we’d had a previous problem with, threatened they were going to come with a bomb. They phoned up and actually said, “You know I’m coming for you as well. Not just Mike Freer.”

Now, the idiot phoned up and his number was on the screen of their phone system. Caroline, my personal assistant, said “I know that number!” We were able to track it back to the guy that made the bomb threat.

But, I would tell my staff, “If you get a bomb threat or if anyone threatens come to the office to kill you or me, you are to close your phone, call the police, close the office and go home.” We never took risks. They always had to feel comfortable.

CPR: What advice would you give to parliamentarians who are aware that there are security measures around them and aware that there’s the possibility that something could happen, but who have not experienced the kind of incidents that you have?

MF: Just take sensible precautions. Sit down with the authorities and work out what is available. If you haven’t had a physical threat, then you know you don’t need to have the intrusive measures that I did. But you can take measures that don’t have to change your life and still make you feel more secure. They can give comfort to your friends and family. And don’t be afraid to use them because a dead hero is no good.

For years I resisted what we call the remote worker devices. I thought they were too clunky and too big. The later iterations were like a key fob. But, eventually I sat down and said, “I want everything that’s available to me and I will then make it work for me.” And I think every parliamentarian, everyone in public life, should go through that process – especially with their partners.

You need to ask them, “What, what are you prepared to put up with at home?”

It doesn’t have to be everything. Don’t live in a prison cell. But be secure and make it work for your own lifestyle.

CPR: Is there anything we haven’t covered in our discussion that you’d like to add?

MF: Physical security is fairly standard, and you know all parliaments swap notes. But, where I think each Parliament is in isolation is how we combat social media threats and hate.

I remember speaking to one of my constituents who’s quite high up in one of the big social media companies. And this wasn’t about my abuse. I told him that I felt we had lots of complaints from our parliamentarians about antisemitism on your platform. And he said, the problem is that we measure our complaints globally.

So, if they’re getting 100,000 complaints from the UK and five million complaints globally, they brush us aside because that number is tiny. And that’s because the social media companies are very good at siloing each Parliament. I think that there is a piece of work where all the parliaments can come together and figure out how can we talk to the social media companies and say, “Free speech is fine, but this is what’s happening.”

And, it’s not necessarily just MPs and people in public life being threatened. If you look at teenage suicide, if you look at people with body dysmorphia, the algorithms feed a narrative and push people down these rabbit holes. So, if someone is thinking of harming someone in public life, it’s very quickly they get almost fed a diet of how to make it happen.

The UK Parliament, and the Canadian Parliament, and Congress, and others… Maybe we need to get together, sit down with the social media companies as a block and say, “Look individually, you’re brushing us aside. But collectively, we are not happy and we need to work on a protocol of how we can protect the public and those in public life from the worst bits of social media.”

Social media allows people to be anonymous. The stuff that people say to Members of Parliament on social media would very rarely ever be said by a person to our face.

If I was on the doorstop and asked a person to say to my face what they said to me on X, they would probably melt, and cry and say, “Oh, I didn’t mean it. It’s just so easy to tweet abuse.”

Social media has become an enabler of abuse. It has a role to play as a public forum, but equally it has responsibilities. I think that parliaments could work much more closely as a block and have a fruitful discussion with the social media companies.