Yahoo News Nigel Farage meets Sir Lindsay Hoyle as Commons Speaker says he's working with police to protect MPs
Nigel Farage has met Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle who has told how he is working with the police to protect MPs.
Sir Lindsay stressed that democracy in Britain would not be allowed to be “intimidated” by attacks and threats against parliamentarians.
A milkshake was thrown over Mr Farage during the election campaign.
Sir Linsday, who was re-elected as Speaker on Tuesday, told LBC Radio: “I met with Nigel yesterday.
“I said it was a milkshake but it could have been something worse.”
The Speaker added: “I’m very concerned that people feel that they have the right to intimidate members, or people who are putting themselves up for election, the fact that MPs who are elected also suffer abuse they should never suffer, threats, intimidation.
“I won’t stand for it.
“I will support all the MPs.
“We will be working with the police.”
He emphasised that if people objected to MPs they could stand against them at elections.
“The first thing is it’s giving people something to do,” he said.
With far fewer Opposition MPs, they would each have more chance of speaking and getting a question in the Chamber.
There would be more Government MPs on select committees.
“Even so with a majority like that it’s about keeping people busy and making sure that they feel part of Parliament and part of the Government,” explained the Speaker.
“It will be a bigger challenge for the whips.”
As Speaker, he would face the challenge of “trying to be fair to the smaller parties” and the “rise of the Lib Dems that we have never seen like that before”
More than 300 new MPs are being inducted into the Commons.
But dozens of MPs lost their seats unexpectedly, mainly Tories, and they were packing up their offices and their staff were leaving, with redundancy arrangements being made.
“At one end it’s all smiles, at the other end it’s all tears,” stressed the Speaker.
