What are the threats to MPs that Sir Lindsay Hoyle is referring to?

After the speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, evoked MPs’ safety in his explanation for the farcical display on Wednesday night, Sean O’Grady reflects on horrifying events that prove just how real that danger can be

MPs leave the House of Commons in anger as the motion on a Gaza ceasefire descends into chaos (Parliament TV)

Facing MPs to explain himself and to apologise for the chaos that resulted, the speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, elaborated on his previous references to MPs’ safety being a factor in his recent decisions. Once again visibly emotional, Sir Lindsay said that he never again wants to pick up the phone “to find a friend has been murdered”. He added: “I made a mistake – we do make mistakes, I own up to mine.”

His apparently sincere apology and expression of honourable intentions seems to have helped his case with some MPs, especially Conservatives, who’d been angry about the break with convention during the SNP’s Opposition Day debate on Gaza – the SNP now say they have no confidence in Sir Lindsay. The latest remarks by the leader of the House of Commons, Penny Mordaunt, set the tone for many in her own party, though, by switching blame towards Labour and Sir Keir Starmer: “We have seen into the heart of Labour’s leadership. Nothing is more important than the interests of the Labour Party. The Labour Party before principle, the Labour Party before individual rights, the Labour Party before the reputation and honour of the decent man that sits in the speaker’s chair.”

For now, the “decent man” seems secure, but what is the nature of the violent threats to MPs’ safety he referred to – and are they being allowed to influence and distort democratic debate?