I had acid attack threat but others get worse, says Raab
DEPUTY prime minister Dominic Raab has had death threats including an acid attack warning, he has revealed.
As more MPs opened up over online abuse,` he said: `I’ve had three threats to life and limb over the last two years.’
Those incidents `all resulted in an intervention’, he said.
Mr Raab, who is also justice secretary, told BBC Breakfast: `There’ll be people who have worse abuse than me, and I particularly feel for female MPs. I know colleagues of mine who have come off Twitter because it’s just so vile.’
Asked on ITV’s Good Morning Britain if MPs may need stab vests, he said: `I’m happy to look at any practical measures, but the reality is people will threaten you with something else. The most recent threat I’ve had was someone threatening to throw acid over me.’ But Mr Raab (pictured) insisted: `We don’t let terrorists win by creating wedges or walls between us and those who vote us in.’ He said of calls for plain-clothes police at the doors of MPs’ constituency surgeries: `I probably wouldn’t choose to have them outside a surgery that I had. I would worry about the chilling effect, I’m not sure it’s necessary to have that.’
Labour’s Chris Bryant yesterday revealed a man had been arrested over an online death threat he received at the weekend – after tweeting people should send MPs messages of kindness.
The Rhondda MP – who had been in Qatar to check the situation faced by Afghan refugees – said: `I got back on Saturday and the first message in my inbox was this death threat, pretty clear. I notified police and they’ve taken action.’ South Wales police confirmed: `A 76-year-old man from Bridgend has been arrested on suspicion of malicious communications.’
The SNP’s Joanna Cherry thought of quitting over `unrelenting attacks’. She said: `On one occasion I required a police escort at my surgery because of a death threat considered credible.’
Another time a menacing man left her and her office manager `so terrified that after he left we pushed all the furniture against the door of the room in the library where my surgery was held while we waited for the police’.
She suggested a return to online surgeries used in lockdown, adding: `We need to consider if MPs can meet total strangers at vulnerable locations such as libraries and church halls.’