For generations, when it comes to our relationship with our elected representatives, we in Britain have taken pride in what many other countries regard as an unusually direct and personal link. MPs continue to hold open constituency surgeries, walk our streets without escorts, cultivating the impression that politics in the United Kingdom is accessible. Yet that settlement is now increasingly under strain.
This week, the deteriorating situation was brought into stark relief by the disclosure by Nigel Farage MP, Reform leader, that continuing and serious threats to his safety led to his acceptance before the 2024 election of a private donation to cover the costs of his own security. Assaults by milkshake might seem amusing to some, but the reality for Mr Farage and many others is that this is the tip of a very large and frightening iceberg.
Not only does his own security dilemma call into question how we protect MPs other than the most senior government ministers, but it asks fundamental questions about how public life itself functions, who chooses to enter politics, and how democracy at all levels is experienced by voters. As large parts of Britain go to the polls in devolved and local elections next week, and campaigns and candidates actively seek election, this question is even more topical.
Reported crimes against MPs have surged in recent years to nearly 1,000 incidents last year, almost double the level recorded in 2023. Security authorities and parliamentary committees now openly acknowledge that intimidation, abuse and credible threats are no longer exceptional risks but routine features of political life.
Perhaps we have been kidding ourselves for too long. I was a boy of nine on my first visit to London in 1979 when I heard the Irish National Liberation Army car bomb that killed Airey Neave in Parliament itself. As a sixth-former, I remember waking up to the appalling news of the 1984 Brighton bombing and as a student, I well recall the murder of Ian Gow by the Provisional IRA at his own home in 1990. The shadow of terrorism on our politics is a long and dark one.
In the last decade, however, something has happened to cast new, longer and even deeper shadows over public life. A multiplicity of threats has emerged simultaneously from different sources: ideological, personal, online and international.
The horrific murders of Jo Cox in 2016 and David Amess in 2021 marked defining moments in our national consciousness. Since then, security arrangements have expanded dramatically. Spending on protecting MPs and their staff has risen from modest sums in the mid-2010s to millions of pounds annually, with security guards, panic alarms, reinforced homes and offices and specialist policing becoming commonplace.
Yet more security brings an uncomfortable paradox: the safer MPs become physically, the harder it becomes for them to perform the representative role voters expect. This was a personal dilemma for me when I was an MP. Like my friend David Amess, I held regular open surgeries, regarding them as an essential part of the democratic process. Jo and David’s murders forced me and many other colleagues to think again.
Not only was our safety in question, but that of our staff and other members of the public. This is real and continuing, as constituency staff report being threatened with knives and even attacks involving hammers at local offices. I can only conclude that this is part of a broader pattern of heightened hostility directed at political figures, amplified no doubt by social media acting as a forum for abuse and intimidation.
Since 2021, some welcome steps have been taken to improve security, and work has continued via the Speaker’s Conference, which has concluded that while physical security measures have improved substantially more has to be done to prioritise and standardise measures for all MPs and staff, with much more emphasis on prevention and educational measures designed to reduce the threat, rather than merely dealing with its symptoms.
Why is this so important? Constant exposure to threats alters political behaviour itself. MPs have sought to avoid controversial local visits, limit social media engagement, or decline public meetings altogether. The result is a quieter, more timid politics, shaped as much by the management of risk as by the need to persuade people in person.
Whilst social media has expanded participation in democracy, it has also lowered the threshold for abuse. Online hostility frequently spills into offline intimidation, creating a doom loop between digital anger and real-world risk, with female MPs particularly affected.
Modern risks extend beyond lone actors. Intelligence warnings have highlighted attempts by hostile states to cultivate relationships with parliamentarians through professional networking platforms and covert influence operations. Meanwhile, rising ideological polarisation and conspiracy-driven politics have normalised the sort of aggressive rhetoric that once sat at the fringes of public debate.
If this institutional danger facing MPs continues and intimidation becomes accepted as part of political participation, recruitment into politics narrows, debate hardens, and public engagement declines. And in the meantime, the prospect of the life of another elected representative being lost remains a real and present danger.
The question now confronting British democracy is stark. Can it preserve openness while ensuring safety? Or will security measures gradually transform MPs into remote figures, protected but disconnected? The way we answer will determine the future of representative democracy itself.
Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland KC was Conservative MP for South Swindon from 2010-2024 and is former Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Wales and Solicitor General. He is currently leading an Independent Review into the murder of Sir David Ame
