Rachel Reeves says pro-Palestine protesters targeting Labour MPs who have refused to support a ceasefire in Gaza are ‘crossing the line’

• Shadow Chancellor warned activists that ‘intimidating’ politicians is wrong 
• Saturday saw protests outside Sir Keir Starmer’s constituency office in Camden
• A crowd also reportedly gathered outside an unnamed MP’s home

Pro-Palestinian protesters targeting Labour MPs who have refused to support a ceasefire in Gaza are ‘crossing the line’, the Shadow Chancellor has said.

Rachel Reeves became the latest senior figure to call for calm and warned activists that ‘intimidating’ politicians is not the right way to make their views heard.

Protests on Saturday – which saw demonstrators march locally in smaller groups rather than gather in central London – saw hundreds gather outside Sir Keir Starmer’s constituency offices in Camden, North London.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has already held discussions with police to ensure the safety of Labour MPs after threats were reported.

Last week Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens saw her office vandalised, while demonstrators also gathered outside the offices of Shadow Ministers Rushanara Ali, Shabana Mahmood and Jon Ashworth – all of whom abstained on the ceasefire vote.

Rachel Reeves became the latest senior figure to call for calm and warned activists that ‘intimidating’ politicians is not the right way to make their views heard

Protests on Saturday saw demonstrators march locally in smaller groups rather than gather in central London 

A crowd also reportedly gathered outside the home of one MP, who has not been named.

Mrs Reeves said: ‘I support the right to protest, but I don’t support the intimidation of members of parliament and I think that’s what you’re seeing with some of these protests now outside of people’s offices and outside of people’s homes, and MPs have a difficult job to do.

‘All public servants do. And this sort of intimidation and taking protests to people’s homes, I think that goes beyond the line.

‘I don’t like it, it’s not acceptable and I think we need a bit of civility and decency in our public discourse and I’m afraid that some of these protests are now crossing the line.’

Sir Keir told the News Agents podcast last week: ‘There’s been intense pressure, I think on lots of us in the last few weeks. But they’re good people trying to deal with a very difficult situation, on top of all that, many of them have been subjected to terrible abuse.’

Yesterday he bizarrely insisted there was still ‘unity’ in the Labour Party on their stance on Gaza. The Labour leader lost ten frontbenchers last week after they rebelled to vote with the SNP for an immediate ceasefire, while the leadership have only gone so far as to call for temporary humanitarian pauses.

‘Everyone in the party wants to do everything to alleviate the suffering in Israel and Gaza – in that sense, there’s great unity,’ he said.

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