WE’RE COMING FOR YOU
‘Cowardly’ death threats sent to Leadsom and Brexiteer allies
A SERIES of death threat letters have been sent to Brexit supporters warning: ‘We are coming for you.’
One was posted to Commons leader Andrea Leadsom, who denounced the writer as a ‘despicable coward’.
Police were yesterday investigating as it emerged that she had become the fourth MP to receive the menacing letter in four days.
The message claimed ‘you have taken lives on our side’ and warned ‘now we will take lives on yours’.
Mrs Leadsom posted a picture on Twitter of the typed letter that came in a handwritten envelope with a Birmingham postmark.
She wrote: ‘Pretty despicable whoever sent me this. We live in a democracy – death threats because you don’t agree? And unsigned? Coward...’
The letter, said to be from ‘the real 48 per cent’, said: ‘If you attempt to take away part of someone’s identity, there are consequences. We have watched as you have led us to the edge of the abyss. We will watch no longer. You have taken lives on our side. Now we will take lives on yours. We are coming for you.’
It also featured the words ‘ we were born in Britain, we live in the UK, we are European’.
Mrs Leadsom was one of the most prominent figures during the Brexit referendum campaign and represented the Leave side in the BBC television debate two days before the vote. Several Vote Leave donors are also thought to have received similar letters.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘Police are aware of threatening letters sent to four Members of Parliament at the House of Commons.
‘Two of the letters were reported to police on Friday February 9, and two on Monday February 12.
‘They are being investigated by officers from the Parliamentary liaison and investigation team. There has been no arrest at this stage. Enquiries are ongoing.’
The letters to MPs come days after Conservative Zac Goldsmith last week tweeted about how an 80-year- old woman in his Richmond constituency had received a similar letter. She was warned: ‘We have watched how you have stoked the fires of Brexit and led us to this moment. You can no longer be tolerated. We are coming for you. We are going to kill you.’
After Mr Goldsmith posted a picture of the letter on Twitter, a BBC local radio gardening expert suggested the Tory MP should receive death threats for supporting Brexit. St John Stephen, a Labour supporter who had a fortnightly slot on BBC Radio London, said: ‘It should have been addressed to you.’ He was sacked by the BBC after the radio station was deluged with complaints about his vile message.
Mr Stephen described himself on Twitter as a ‘gardener, broadcaster and poet with a fortnightly slot on BBC Radio London’. His profile picture shows an EU flag flying in a garden.
Ahead of last June’s general election he posted on Facebook ‘I’m voting Labour’ and ‘Vote Labour – For the many not the few’.
He has shared photos of himself in front of Karl Marx’s grave in Highgate Cemetery, London.
Mr Stephen apologised for his tweet, but it is understood he will not return to his radio slot. In a message to Mr Goldsmith on Twitter, he wrote: ‘I apologise unreservedly for my tweet concerning the letter sent to one of your constituents. Obviously I do not condone death threats or threats of physical violence.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘He is a freelance gardening contributor. This was clearly unacceptable.’
Tory MP Andrew Bridgen said last night: ‘I think it is a very worrying and sinister development that people could be threatened with death for holding a different political view to someone else.’
Responding to Mrs Leadsom’s tweet, Remainer MP Anna Soubry, who last week called for Theresa May to ‘sling out’ hardline Tory Brexiteers, said whomever was sending the threats was ‘committing a criminal offence and undermining free speech’.
‘A very sinister development’