Britain to beef up security around lawmakers after MP killed

By AFP 17 October 2021, 2:06 pm

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Police officers near the bunches of flowers placed at the scene of the fatal stabbing of Conservative MP David Amess, at Belfairs Methodist Church in Leigh-on-Sea, a district of Southend-on-Sea, in southeast England, on October 16, 2021. (Tolga Akmen/AFP)

LEIGH-ON-SEA, England — Britain’s interior minister says MPs’ security will be beefed up, after a lawmaker was stabbed to death as he held a public meeting with constituents, in the second such attack in five years.

Veteran Conservative MP David Amess, 69, was talking with voters at a church in the small town of Leigh-on-Sea, east of London, when he was killed on Friday.

The attack has spread fear among MPs, coming just over five years after the similar killing of Labour MP Jo Cox in the febrile run-up to the Brexit referendum.

Police have said they are investigating “a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism.” The investigation is being led by Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command.

Home Secretary Priti Patel has ordered a review of security measures for lawmakers and tells Sky News that “we need to close any gaps” in security provision for MPs, whose work includes regular meetings with constituents, called “surgeries.”

She says that police and parliamentary authorities were implementing “immediate changes and measures that are actively being put in place, and discussed with MPs.”

This includes MPs sharing information on their whereabouts with police. Close protection at surgeries was also “in consideration right now,” she adds.

The Sunday Telegraph reports that uniformed police are guarding some surgeries following the attack, which prompted calls from some MPs for a pause in face-to-face meetings.