Scotland Yard is offering every MP a security briefing this week on keeping themselves and their staff safe in their constituencies following the murder of Jo Cox.
The Observer understands that there are also now plans for establishing a central body that can ensure that all local forces respond swiftly and appropriately to threats against MPs.
The moves follow criticism that MPs were not given adequate protection away from parliament and that complaints to the parliamentary security directorate had been ignored.
The shadow leader of the Commons, Chris Bryant, said that such was his frustration with the lack of protection that he warned the parliamentary security director Paul Martin three months ago that an “MP will get shot”.
MPs had already been offered “enhanced security” for their constituency offices and homes, as well as updated guidance, after a surge in reported death threats since the vote on Britain’s military involvement in Syria last November.
Specific threats of attack have led to 62 MPs applying for such help, the Observer can reveal.
However, MPs said they had repeatedly raised concerns that some local police forces were still not taking the vulnerability of MPs seriously.
David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, said there had been incidents in his last three surgeries – including a death threat to an aide – and yet his complaint to Haringey council at the beginning of the month about the poor security they provided was ignored. The council responded to his complaint only on the day after the murder of the West Yorkshire MP.
The Labour MP said that he insisted on two police officers being present at his constituency surgery on Friday, and that this would be the case for the “foreseeable future”. He said that, even the day after Cox’s murder, he was verbally abused as he left his surgery.
Writing on this newspaper’s website, Lammy said: “A decade ago, a constituent set himself alight outside my surgery. Five years ago, a woman pulled a knife from her handbag. Just last week, a constituent threatened to kill my caseworker, a young woman who works night and day helping those who find themselves at the end of the road with nowhere else to turn. I have long felt vulnerable and now feel more vulnerable than ever before. On Thursday, my 10-year-old son asked me, ‘Daddy, are you safe? Will anyone try to shoot you?’
“I couldn’t bear to tell him the truth, so I lied to him. I didn’t want him to worry about his dad, but as MPs we have no way of knowing whether someone will attack us in the libraries, village halls and community centres where MP advice surgeries are held each week, far away from the security and police protection of the Houses of Parliament.”
Bryant added that it was also important that MPs reported any threats to the police. The Labour MP said that he had recently been subject to a death threat on Twitter, which he reported to police. After officers investigated the identity of the man involved, it was discovered that he lived abroad and so he was put on an Interpol watch list. The man was later picked up and arrested returning to Europe from Syria.
Police have confirmed that Cox had received sexually motivated threats at her Westminster office in the months leading up to her death.
