'Bear pit' House of Commons - does the PM need to stop using 'dangerous' language?
Several in parliament asked him to speak with greater care
Joe Harker
Prime Minister Boris Johnson was back in the Commons this week (Image: PA)
Boris Johnson has refused to moderate his language despite requests from MPs to do so after this week the House of Commons was described as a "bear pit" .
He claimed the best way to honour the memory of murdered MP Jo Cox was to get Brexit done, accused parliament of "surrender" and "betrayal" then dismissed concerns from MPs over the use of dangerous language as "humbug".
Several in parliament asked him to speak with greater care, citing death threats that quoted the prime minister's own words, but he refused.
Do you love white chocolate? Well, it's not really made with chocolate
Speaker of the House of Commons John Bercow described the "toxic" atmosphere as the worst he'd seen in his 22 years in parliament.
Does the prime minister have a responsibility to set an example with his language or is he right to dismiss concerns as "humbug"?
The BBC reports MPs are furious at Johnson's "dangerous language", with Labour's Paula Sherriff explicitly asking the prime minister to stop describing the Benn Act, which obliges him to ask for a Brexit extension if he can't get a deal, as the "Surrender Act" and tone down his language in order to set a better example.
She said the need for parliament to speak in moderate terms and avoid dangerous words "has to come from the prime minister first", but Johnson rebuked her and repeated the phrase.
Jess Phillips, another Labour MP, read a death threat she had received that quoted Johnson's words . The threat said that the prime minister's claim he would rather be dead in a ditch than extend Brexit was "rather prophetic", going on to declare "that is what will happen to those who do not deliver Brexit".
There is a £167m EuroMillions jackpot on Friday and somebody could become UK's biggest ever lottery winner
Matt Chorley of The Times described Johnson's behaviour as "shocking and utterly, utterly depressing", accusing the prime minister of being "a nasty, mean-spirited, cruel, sarcastic bully".
He went on to argue Johnson knows exactly what he is doing when he uses dangerous and inflammatory language as his voting base will parrot his "Surrender Act" line. This is a belief shared with many MPs who have said the use of dangerous language is an intentional strategy from the government.
Chorley also described the prime minister's use of Jo Cox's murder to ask MPs to back him on Brexit as "beyond the pale".
When those who make death threats against MPs are using the prime minister's own words to make said threats then it is entirely reasonable for MPs to ask the prime minister to tone down his language.
The Counter Claim
When an MP has been murdered, a plot to kill another discovered and Boris Johnson's words appearing in death threats made against MPs it simply feels wrong to "both sides" this issue.
Dangerous language is not the sole practice of one side of politics, MPs of all kinds of political leanings have used dangerous language and been threatened by it.
However, when the prime minister rejects reasonable requests to tone down his language in the context of a murdered MP and death threats made against others that quote him then his dismissal of their concerns as "humbug" is particularly noteworthy.
Jess Phillips asked an urgent question of the prime minister in the House of Commons today over his use of language but Johnson wasn't around to answer it. He was at the 1922 Committee, leaving junior minister Kevin Foster to answer the question instead.
Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, was murdered on June 16, 2016. She was shot and stabbed numerous times, with pensioner Bernard Carter-Kenny also stabbed as he tried to help Cox. It was the first killing of a sitting MP in the UK since 1990.
Earlier this year a neo-Nazi was handed a life sentence for plotting to murder Labour MP Rosie Cooper , they were also intending to kill a police officer against whom they held a grudge.
Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson revealed to the Commons that she had gone to the police over a threat made against her child .
Perspecs - a news app like no other
Perspecs is a free app that curates the top news stories from a variety of established regional, national and international news sources. Unlike traditional aggregators and news curation services, Perspecs goes a step further and offers readers 3 polarised opinions of the same story.
How these opinions are categorised can vary. For political stories this could be in the form of 'left', 'background', 'right'. For review items the categories could be 'negative', 'neutral', 'positive'.
Readers often stick to their regular sources of news therefore often only ever seeing one side of a story. Perspecs will give you the opportunity to see things from a different perspective and allow you to form your own informed opinion.
Perspecs will publish 1 edition per day and each edition will be packed with a variety of interesting and sometimes controversial topics. Most importantly, there will be 3 sides to every story.
Many other MPs have spoken of the abuse and threats they are receiving . The SNP's Dr Lisa Cameron said she needed security so her children could play in their garden and received death threats as soon as she was first elected in 2015. Tory MP Scott Mann received a threat to nail bomb his office.
At least 108 MPs have had to contact the police about threats made against them in the past 12 months.
Cressida Dick, Metropolitan Police commissioner, said threats made against MPs had reached "unprecedented" levels. Threats to MPs more than doubled in 2018 and are expected to rise even higher this year. Women and ethnic minority MPs were disproportionately targeted by threats and abuse.
Food hygieneKFC bosses say there's 'no excuse' for shocking food hygiene rating in Hull city centre restaurantThe Jameson Street branch has been handed a score of just one out of five