MPs need security. I just pray it can be done without a guard outside their bedroom with a Beretta, writes ex-Tory MP JERRY HAYES – who got protection after featuring on an IRA death list

Anyone who enters the House of Commons is faced with a chilling reminder of how dangerous being an MP can be.

This is a brass plate marking the spot where Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was shot and killed by a man with a grudge on May 11, 1812. His mortally wounded body was placed on a table and he bled to death within minutes.

This table is located in the Speaker’s House. The stain of Perceval’s blood is still visible, a reminder of the daunting responsibility every Speaker has to protect Members of Parliament.

Every death threat, every attack and every murder of Airey Neave, Ian Gow, Jo Cox, Sir David Amess and the bludgeoning of Ann Widdecombe is an attack on our democracy.

MPs need to be protected. But there needs to be a balance. They should never be isolated from the public. They should be allowed to walk freely, separated by steel rings or not put in bulletproof cars. They should not be thought to have special privileges that the rest of the people do not have. Let professionals decide on threats and precautions.

As a Conservative politician in the 1980s and 1990s, I had armed security at my home for a long time. I’ll never forget the House of Commons security chief inviting me to a chat. He told me they had found my name on the IRA hit list; This was no doubt because I had publicly praised the SAS for shooting down three IRA bombers in Gibraltar in 1988.

‘Nothing to worry about, they’re unlikely to shoot you, but they might try to blow up your car,’ said the security chief. He gave me a mirror on a stick and a brochure.

A few months later, when we returned from a family holiday and landed at Stansted airport, we were asked to go to the front of the plane, greeted by armed officers and escorted to safety. Conservative Party MP Ian Gow was murdered. They blew up his car.

From that moment our lives changed. Heavily armed men surrounded our house; the two of them were on the cricket field opposite with their Heckler and Koch machine guns.

The garage was bomb-proof, the windows were unbreakable, and the dining room was filled with automatic weapons. Believe me, there is no more effective birth control than a man with a Beretta outside his bedroom door.

Even if, years after completing my post as political advisor to the Northern Ireland Office, I doubted the need for such intense protection, disturbing events reminded me of the danger I faced.

I was once walking in the Harlow constituency in Essex when someone dropped a bag of flour from a tower. It missed me by a single step, but if it had hit me it would have put my head in.

Then one night I was thrown to the ground by officers as a car came to a screeching halt outside. The driver’s door was ripped open and five red dots appeared on the passenger. The poor guy was very scared and just said he was sorry he had run over a cat.

Another time, I received a note from Prisons Minister Angela Rumbold explaining that a laggard had admitted he wanted to kill me. When I met him in a Commons bar I expressed relief that the man was behind bars. ‘Didn’t they tell you he was released a few weeks ago?’ I hope things are a little more organized today.

It must be so, because I fear we are returning to the dark days of the Troubles when political violence was a depressing feature of MPs’ lives.

Indeed, members are now more at risk than ever before. They face a wild social media landscape where anything goes, dripping with bile and filled with threats. Vile false rumors become facts in the distorted minds of the radicalized.

Jerry Hayes, pictured in 1994 photo, argues that deputies need to be protected but hopes it can be done without a man with a Beretta standing outside his bedroom door

Everyone is a journalist. ‘Mainstream media’ is the enemy. Worst of all, it has become fashionable to attack our institutions by saying that the police are corrupt and the judiciary produces two-tiered justice. As the conspirators see it, everyone is against the truth.

One need look no further than the disgusting celebration by some on the left of the brutal murder of Ann Widdecombe, a principled, kind and compassionate 78-year-old woman with strong views.

Who wants to enter politics if they are threatened, abused and vilified? Some may argue, so what happened? People have the right to be aggressive. And they are right, because censorship is the midwife of totalitarianism. But let’s not forget what a great insult to democracy it is to silence our elected representatives with insults and violence.

Following the murder of Jo Cox by a deranged white supremacist in 2016, MPs gained access to extra security through Operation Bridger, a nationwide police protection program.

Then, following the stabbing death of Sir David Amess by an Islamist terrorist in 2021, it fell to Chief Constables to oversee the security of local MPs.

And now it feels as if we’ve reached another rung on the ladder to a police state, where our elected tribunes are separated from their voters by a praetorian guard of Ray-Ban-wearing guards.

It would be a sad day if MPs decided their weekly surgeries with the public had become too dangerous. These counseling offices always carried the potential for violence. MPs advise their constituents, some of them problematic, on deeply personal matters. Anything can happen, and sometimes it does. I was attacked twice.

But even before I had armed security, Essex Police would provide a uniformed guard as a deterrent. This is an absolute minimum requirement for MPs to feel safe today.

As Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle insisted in the 2025 committee report on MPs’ safety, there is a better understanding among politicians and the public about what level of abuse meets the criminal threshold. I would go further and describe any attack on a member of parliament as a more serious crime requiring a harsher punishment, as applied to those who attack police officers.

But however right Reform leader Nigel Farage is in calling for greater personal protection – and I think there should be more emphasis on less centrist politicians – there needs to be common sense and balance.

The right to offend others is the basis of freedom of expression, and this applies to politicians who offend the public and vice versa.

It is perfectly appropriate to have a discussion about vigilance within the police. It is important that we discuss immigration freely. It is vital that the dispossessed, the ignored, the patronized have a say.

My only hope is that this can be done without having a guy with a Beretta standing in front of the bedroom door.