Defiant MPs have vowed that they will not allow the killing of Sir David Amess to stop them from meeting constituents face-to-face.
Boris Johnson and Sir Keir Starmer led the charge, both insisting that “we will not be cowed” despite the killing of Sir David at a constituency surgery on Friday.
But backbenchers who have far less security protection than senior politicians also insisted they would keep up face-to-face meetings, while telling i they would welcome closer collaboration with the police.
Labour’s Stephen Timms, who was stabbed during one of his constituency surgeries in 2010, insisted “we mustn’t give up on the accessibility of members of Parliament”.
“If we do, the sponsors of those who attacked David and who attacked me will have succeeded,” Mr Timms told the Commons.
Conservative Alexander Stafford told i he would continue with drop-in surgeries “on the street corner” as it is “the best way to actually engage with people” and “would not work” if constituents had to undergo checks before meeting him.
But he added: “I do think there should be better links between MPs and police, perhaps weekly check-ins.”
Shadow Foreign Minister Fabian Hamilton said “every MP wants to be as accessible as possible to their constituents”, while acknowledging increased security at surgeries could help.
“Helping them is one of the most important reasons we were elected to Parliament in the first place,” he told i.
One Tory backbencher, who did not want to be named, said she did not believe stationing police at constituency surgeries would be a good idea in case they deterred people from attending.
“There is only so much you can do,” she told i. “I think it does put people off.”
Labour’s Emma Hardy told i that MPs should have the “flexibility” to request police help at meetings “rather than it being a mandatory yes or no”.
She praised her local Humberside Police force for sending an officer to an open meeting she held on Saturday following Sir David’s killing, but stressed a police presence would not be required at other events.
David Davis warned that there was a risk of going too far in preventing constituents from seeing their MP, stressing that suspending public meetings would be a “terrible reflection” of Sir David’s beliefs of what made a good politician.
“I don’t think we should do that,” he told Sky News. “I don’t think David would either.”
In the Commons, Mr Johnson said: “Even after the murder of Jo Cox and the savage attacks on Stephen Timms and Nigel Jones he refused to accept that he should be in any way deterred from speaking face to face with his constituents.
“And so when he died he was doing what he firmly believed was the most important part of any MP’s job: offering help to those in need.”
His official spokesman added: “We will not be cowed by those who seek to divide us and spread hate and the PM has been struck by the bravery and commitment to serving constituents expressed by many MPs following Sir David’s death.”
Sir Keir said the “cowardly” killing of Sir David was “an attack on our country and our way of life”.
He added: “That is why our response must always be to show we will never be cowed.”
It came as ex-Tory leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith was targeted with a chilling threat over the weekend that appeared to be inspired by the killing of Sir David.
He received an envelope marked ‘SMITH’, which contained a newspaper report with the headline “murder of Tory MP was terror attack”, and a handwritten note reading “LIKE YOU TWO FACED BARSTED”.
Earlier, Mr Raab revealed he has faced “three threats to life and limb over the last two years”.
The most recent was “someone threatening to throw acid over me”.