Laura Kuenssberg: Commons chaos was grisly reminder of threa
2024-02-24 14:48:20+00:00

Big events can shake everything. Small moments come to matter too.

I remember day one of the EU referendum campaign - Vote Leave had
just unveiled their infamous £350m slogan. At the campaign's first
big rally in Manchester I asked Boris Johnson about that misleading
headline claim. The audience booed. It wasn't a big deal, it wasn't
upsetting, but that small moment was a total surprise.

One of the campaign team even called me afterwards to apologise,
vowing it would never happen again. They hoped the referendum
campaign wouldn't be ugly. They were wrong.

I remember a huge, dreadful day eight weeks later. We'd been
interviewing Jeremy Corbyn in Sheffield in the final frantic moments
of that same campaign. It was not long after his supporters had also
started to boo and jeer at reporters for asking questions. Any hopes
of a civil campaign were long gone.

Eight weeks later there was a huge and massive shock. We were in the
middle of the usual rush to edit and send our report for the news
that night. My editor called saying that the MP Jo Cox had been
attacked, and it looked very bad. I stopped what we'd been doing,
rushed to the station, and began making calls to try to find out what
was going on. When I got to the platform, my phone rang again. Jo had
died.

Her killer, Thomas Mair, had a long history of interest in Nazism and
far-right extremism. His violent obsessions certainly didn't begin
with the referendum campaign. But Jo's courageous husband, Brendan,
told me a few days later he believed she was murdered for her
political views.

He said she had been worried about how politics was "coarsening",
becoming too "tribal and unthinking". Her death was a hideous shock.
Politicians vowed to follow her example of kindness. You don't need
me to tell you whether they stuck to that.

It was a private conversation with another Labour MP a few years
later that hammered home how common the threats were becoming.  It
was September 2018, and after a couple of years of Brexit
frustrations in Parliament - and hideous infighting in the Labour
Party - the MP was in agony over the dangers they faced just for
doing their job.

They'd been appealing to their local police force after weeks of
threats in their constituency, but felt they were being brushed off.

They told me about the security grilles, cameras, alarms, and other
equipment they'd installed to try to keep them and their staff safe.
But the MP didn't want to go public, fearing it would make matters
worse.  It was no secret that lots of them had received abuse by that
stage - in real life, not just on social media. It was a familiar
topic of conversation around Westminster's ancient corridors.

As reporters, we were by then used to being hassled and heckled
around the fringes of the demonstrations that had become part of
Westminster's daily backdrop. I'd developed a habit of walking as
quickly as I could with my head down past the crowds.

But from that moment, I understood a shocking new norm - some MPs
were carrying genuine fears for their lives every day. "These threats
are real," they said. Their tears and distress made it plain.

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A couple of months later, I remember those regular demonstrations
taking a different turn. A couple of small groups would walk
alongside MPs as they tried to move around the tiny SW1 postcode,
hurling abuse and accusations at close quarters and recording them on
their phones.

You could see these groups huddling and waiting for a famous face,
ready to pounce.  If the politician responded in any way,  these
groups had footage that might go viral. Ignore it, the politician
could be accused of being rude and shunning the public's voice. The
first few times I saw it, it felt shocking. It seemed to be
deliberate provocation for the purposes of creating content for
social media.

During that whole period, just as now, there were many people with
strong and deeply held views using their legitimate right to protest.
Goodness knows, the public's frustration with politicians is often
entirely understandable.

Protest is important. Many MPs themselves are veterans of noisy
demonstrations. Politicians love a good argument - a vigorous debate.
And of course there have been risks to politicians and Parliament
before, whether from the IRA for many years, or terror threats in
recent times.

But surrounding politicians and screaming abuse, or trying to block
their path as they try to walk down the street, are different.  Now,
almost any MP will tell you, what can look like an ambush can happen
at any time.

These moments I remember, big and small, track what has been a
journey to a different kind of politics.  Many of the people we
choose to represent us really believe their personal safety, and that
of their families, is routinely at stake.

And this week marks another major moment. The Speaker of the House of
Commons says he made a decision to break the unwritten rules of
Parliament because of those risks. He says he made a mistake in
allowing a vote on Labour's motion, because he was trying to protect
his colleagues from public anger and danger.

It's only in time I suspect that we'll be able to unravel all of what
went on during those hours of chaos. As we talked about in my
newsletter on Thursday, the mayhem was not completely unfamiliar, but
a reminder of those months of grisly pantomime during the Brexit
years.

But it appears that events in the Commons, not just the screaming and
shouting outside, were influenced not by information, but
intimidation.

Many politicians, and perhaps many of you, may feel that is a
profoundly uneasy precedent if it is allowed to stand. For his part,
the Speaker has apologised. It could be a turning point in either
direction.

Will the police be given more powers to protect MPs as some
recommend? Will politicians start to be more vocal about the nature
of protests? Will some of those who have been on the streets, or
outside politicians' homes, rethink their tactics - or go even
further?

What happened in those hours of chaos on Wednesday night is a moment
we will remember.  But we can't yet know the effect it will have, how
it will be marked in our memories in the months to come.

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