MPs are at heightened risk of attack amid growing unhappiness with Labour over issues such as the farms inheritance tax raid and winter fuel allowance axe, an expert warned today.
Philip Grindell, a former detective who advised Parliament on security for MPs after the killing of Jo Cox, has voiced alarm at a growing list of ‘grievances’ after the Budget.
He cautioned that mass protests by farmers, the prospect of more pensioners dying over the winter, and looming job losses from the national insurance hike on businesses were among the flashpoints.
Mr Grindell told that the government was giving the impression it was not ‘listening’ to anger. And he pointed to the row about ministers accepting ‘freebies’ such as clothes and Taylor Swift gig tickets as a potential aggravating factor.
The comments came amid Labour nerves at signs of the government’s popularity plunging after a torrid first few months in power.
In the latest evidence of public anger, around 1.9million people have signed a Parliamentary petition demanding an immediate general election – although it does not have any specific effect.
MPs have been warned they are at heightened risk of attack amid growing unhappiness with Labour over issues such as the farms inheritance tax raid and winter fuel allowance axe (pictured, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves)
In the latest evidence of public anger, around 1.8million people have signed a Parliamentary petition demanding an immediate general election – although it does not have any effect
Mass protests by farmers, the prospect of more pensioners dying over the winter, and looming job losses from the national insurance hike on businesses are among the potential flashpoints, according to a security expert
An internal impact assessment last week revealed that removing the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners could push 100,000 more into poverty
An internal impact assessment last week revealed that removing the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners could push 100,000 more into poverty.
Big retailers have been sending a message that the £25billion employer NICs raid in the Budget will cost jobs and push up prices.
Meanwhile, ministers have been hit with bad economic news, with the economy struggling and inflation higher than hoped.
Mr Grindell, who now runs security firm Defuse Global, said some government policies had caused a ‘deeply emotional response’.
‘While the vast majority will express deep dissatisfaction, those on the fringes will become increasingly angry and may take more direct action,’ he said.
‘Some will become fixated on their grievances and become dangerous.’
Mr Grindell said the attacks on MPs over the past couple of decades had been ‘driven by grievances’.
‘The common denominator is that the person of concern feels they are the victim of an injustice,’ he said.
He suggested that potential flashpoints could come from a relative of a pensioner who dies during a cold snap; a ‘humiliated’ farmer who has to sell a farm that has been in a family for generations; or someone who loses their home after being made redundant.
Mr Grindell warned: The grievance may make no rational sense to anyone other than the person involved, but it is very real to them.
‘Nothing you do will resolve that, however unreasonable that is to you. The key to this is that the subject’s opinion counts.
‘A grievance that forms a violent ideation is caused by their inability to resolve that grievance.
‘The attacker believes that they have run out of ideas and, therefore, their only remedy to resolve the issue is through violence.
‘In their mind, it is the only way to get anyone to listen to them.’
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Mr Grindell said ‘issues have been compounded by stories of the new Labour Cabinet plundering all the freebies they can get’.
He added: ‘The government needs to change their position from ‘that’s it, accept it’. Ministers are giving the impression that they are not listening, and that can only make the sense of grievance worse.’
Mr Grindell said the challenge for security agencies was ‘distinguishing angry people from dangerous ones’ through ‘behavioural threat assessment’.
‘The next attacker may not be someone known to the Police; it may just be a disgruntled local constituent with a grievance who believes that the Government refuses to listen or consider the impact on working people’s lives,’ he said.