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Liz Truss backs Sir Lindsay Hoyle to stay as Speaker and warns MPs are in danger

Liz Truss has intervened to defend the under-fire Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle, insisting that he should stay in office and not quit.

The former Prime Minister gave her support in an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC.

It comes as 67 MPs have now backed a motion demanding the Speaker steps down after compromising his neutrality by allowing Labour to hijack an Opposition Day debate put forward by the SNP.

The move, against the advice of the Commons clerk, appeared to be designed to spare the blushes of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer who was facing a rebellion of 100 of his MPs.

Sir Lindsay though has insisted that it was to protect MPs whose lives have been threatened by extremists who claim to support Palestine and could have links with the terrorist group Hamas.

She said: “I accept the Lindsay Hoyle’s apology. I don’t want to see him removed as Speaker.”

But she warned that the whole issue has raised very serious concerns about what is happening in Britain.

She said: “I think the problem is wider than the Speaker. I think MPs are not protected enough.

“We have had two MPs who have been murdered in the last 10 years, Mike Freer an excellent constituency MP has been forced to stand down because of threats to him and an attack on his constituency office.

“I value democracy very highly. It’s the absolute core of the British, the British way, the British Constitution and we have to make sure MPs are properly protected from bullying threats.”

She added: “It’s appalling that MPs are being harassed at their surgeries or on trains and I think it is incumbent on the police and the home office to increase the level of protection that MPs are afforded I think that is the fundamental issue at the heart of this issue.”

In her speech Ms Truss warned that in the US Joe Biden has been “asleep at the wheel” over the dangers posed by extremist protesters on US streets.

She told Express.co.uk that the UK has the same problem.

The former Prime Minister said: “We have a Conservative Government in Britain but too many decisions have been outsourced to quangos or the legal system that shouldn’t be taken by democratically elected politicians.”

On what is happening in the US she warned: “If we look at the protests on the streets of the United States in favour of Hamas, or what’s been happening in university campuses in the US or what’s been going on in schools?

“And in terms of young children being able to take hormone altering drugs, you know, these are all issues that concern me.

“What I want to see, because I care about the future of the free world is Republicans back in the White House actually dealing with those issues.”

SOURCE

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