Junior British cabinet member Mike Freer, representing the parliamentary seat of Finchley and Golders Green since 2010, has announced he would not contest his seat in the next general election in the UK.
The announcement was triggered by a series of death threats and an arson attack on his constituency office on Christmas Eve in 2023, the BBC reported.
In a letter to his local Conservative Party association, Freer said that, while it would be "be an enormous wrench to step down," he could no longer put his family through the worry of his safety as it weighed heavily on him and his husband.
The Daily Mail also reported that, since the incident, Freer and his staff decided to wear stab vests when attending public events after learning that Ali Harbi Ali had watched his Finchley office prior to assassinating his parliamentary colleague Sir David Amess in 2021.
"I was very lucky that actually on the day [of Ali's attempted attack] I was due to be in Finchley, I happened to change my plans and came into Whitehall," he said.
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Freer Speculates Pro-Israel Views Trigger Death Threats
Freer, who has pro-Israel views and represented a heavily Jewish constituency, told the Mail that he could not "divorce" antisemitism from the intimidation.
He was not the only MP contemplating on not contesting their seats in the next general election expected later this year.
Labour Party candidate for Finchley and Golders Green Sarah Sackman said that she was shocked by the news of Freer's resignation.
"We should have been able to face each other in the polls based on our ideas and merits," she said. "Instead, politics is now so often skewed by violent language, hate, and the dangers of social media."
Meanwhile, former Tory minister Sir Conor Burns posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Freer's decision to quit politics was "totally understandable."
"The drip-drip of hate (not exclusively from people on the other side) and remorseless cynicism will drive more people out of politics," he added.
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