Andrew Allison, Head of Campaigns (standing in for Mark Littlewood), takes a look at the murder of Ann Widdecombe and the scale of the security crisis facing our elected representatives and spokesmen for political parties.
Just two hours after the news had broken that Ann Widdecombe had been murdered, I was interviewed by Kevin O'Sullivan on Talk where I tried to make sense of it. I reminisced about the times I shared a platform with Ann when we were both Brexit Party MEP candidates and my time working alongside her and other MEPs as a staffer in the European Parliament. You can watch that HERE. Annunziata Rees-Mogg's interview about Ann with Mark Dolan, given the following day, can be found HERE.
We were told by Devon and Cornwall Police that there was "nothing to suggest it [her murder] was politically motivated". In a press conference on Sunday 12th July, Assistant Chief Constable Matt Longman (Devon and Cornwall Police), said, “At this point, there is still no information to suggest that this is a terrorism-related incident”, but the previous evening a new suspect had been arrested in a joint operation between Counter Terrorism officers and South Yorkshire Police. Was Mr Longman deliberately misleading us, or did he have what he regarded as a legitimate reason for not telling us the full truth?
But even without that piece of information, the fact that this suspect had travelled 270 miles from his home in Rotherham to Ann's home in Devon, pointed to this as being a political assassination. Thankfully, six days ago, responsibility for the investigation was passed to Counter Terrorism Policing South East.
Ann Widdecombe is the third politician to be murdered in the UK in the last ten years. Questions remain about the security of MPs and other public figures like Ann who was a spokesman for Reform UK. Whilst it is impossible to provide close protection officers for all MPs and spokesmen for political parties, the sheer scale of death threats received by politicians and former politicians in the UK is deeply troubling.
Nigel Farage receives roughly 300 threats a month - an average of ten a day. Dame Penny Mordaunt has said that she has received more than 700 death threats and rape threats, which include explicit threats to murder her family. "I haven't had a day when I haven't had a live police investigation or a live court case going on”, she has commented. Labour MP and former minister, Jess Phillips has said that current MPs receive so many rape and death threats that they actively have to remind themselves not to become blasé about them.
I have also read posts on social media from people on the left, “trans activists” and others rejoicing at Ann’s murder. They are sick and I will not repeat their words here. All I will say is that those who like to end their social media posts with #BeKind only extend their kindness to those with whom they agree. The rest of us can go to hell.
As a country, we all could do with being more civil to and having more respect for one another. But I don't want to see this being legislated for in Parliament with even stricter hate speech laws. Ann Widdecombe spoke out against that on numerous occasions. That is not the answer.
But death threats and rape threats are illegal irrespective of where you make them. It doesn't make any difference if you make a threat in a pub, in your place of work, in an email, in a letter, a text message, on the phone, or online, all those people engaging in this criminal behaviour should be arrested and prosecuted.
A trans activist - a former Labour candidate - in Aberdeen has been arrested for posting on social media that he hoped Ann Widdecombe had a painful death. Nasty and obnoxious his comments most certainly were, but instead of arresting this person for being nasty, the police ought to be arresting people who are breaking the law by sending death and rape threats.
If the police actively looked for people who think that threatening others online is acceptable behaviour and a bit of fun, there would be fewer people engaging in that type of behaviour.