MP was ‘scared’ by Gaza protester
ANGELA Rayner says she was ‘scared’ when a Palestinian man who lost five loved ones in Gaza confronted her at an event in Stockport last week.
Dalloul al-Neder approached the Ashton-under-Lyne MP as others shouted at her while she was speaking at the party fundraiser which fellow Greater Manchester MPs Jonathan Reynolds, Andrew Gwynne and Navendu Mishra also attended
According to police, seven people were removed from the event held at the Village Hotel in Cheadle on January 25.
Mr al-Neder, who lost his mum, brother, pregnant sister-in-law and two nieces during bombing in December, interrupted Ms Rayner during her speech.
He was shouting at Labour’s deputy leader, who was flanked by other frontbenchers, about the circumstances surrounding his loved ones’ deaths and called for a ceasefire before being ushered away by a police officer. Others then begin shouting at Ms Rayner too.
Speaking to Sky News, Ms Rayner said she was ‘scared’ because they did not know what would happen.
She said: “Some people said, ‘why didn’t you speak to them?’ I would have spoken to that person. I’ll speak to them one to one. I’ll have a conversation.
“But when you get the levels of abuse and threats that MPs get now, when someone comes at you, you don’t know. You honestly don’t know. When someone’s shouting and they come over, you don’t know what’s coming. I didn’t know what’s coming at me.
“And it did affect me. And it has affected me since that incident. And I’m not blaming that individual because they don’t know the context of my inbox. They don’t know the context of how MPs have to tolerate that level of abuse.
“Now, of course you can disagree with members of Parliament, you can disagree about their position. You can protest about a position. But I think a lot of the time, often the people who threaten me, when they’ve been contacted by the police, they say, ‘oh, I didn’t realise.’ They send and email that may have a death threat in it and they just think, I was just angry and I didn’t realise.”