All Hackney councillors have been offered personal attack alarms as security precaution

Hackney Town Hall

Personal attack alarms have been offered to all elected Town Hall politicians as part of safety measures that could in future entail paying security personnel to guard councillors’ surgeries.

Alarms were purchased by the council amid concern about possible threats to politicians following the murder last year of Labour MP Jo Cox by a far right terrorist.

As part of new safety measures, councillors have had a training session with police about “terrorism threats with particular regard to those in public office”, according to Town Hall papers due to be considered at a meeting next week.

A review is being carried out into security at ward surgeries – the drop in events at which residents can meet their elected representatives and get help and advice.

This comes after police last year urged MPs to review security at their constituency surgeries.

Several politicians nationally have previously spoken up about levels of abuse, harassment and misogyny they have faced, with the rise of social media often blamed for the souring of the language people use to communicate with politicians – though there has also been debate about what counts as legitimate free speech.

Councillor Mete Coban, Hackney’s youngest councillor who was 21 when he was elected for Labour in 2014, said he had chosen not to carry one of the alarm devices – but he added that the council was right to offer them.

The prospect of attacks on politicians was a “serious problem”, he said, adding that surgeries often took place in “isolated” locations where help might take longer to arrive if the worst were to happen.

Cllr Mete Coban said he does not currently feel it necessary to carry an alarm but thought the council was right to offer them

Cllr Coban, who works with young people interested in getting more involved in the political process nationally, said: “I do think people underestimate the role of councillors. We are very frontline. If anything we could be as vulnerable [to attack] as MPs – probably even more so.”

Security measures could potentially make politicians more distant from the people they represent, thereby harming democracy – but Cllr Coban said they were necessary as councillors were “real people too” and needed protecting if they felt threatened.

He said: “There’s a fine line between holding your politicians to account and stepping over that line.

“It’s one thing to be disagreeing with your elected representatives and debating with them – I’m all for that.

“But if it’s going to the point where someone seems to be making threats, if it starts to get repetitive, particularly if there are threats to harm someone, that’s a different thing.”

He said he had not personally encountered this level of aggression but believed some of his colleagues might have done. He added that such incidents were kept “confidential…so I wouldn’t necessarily know”.

Cllr Katie Hanson, a member of the committee in charge of considering if further safety measures are needed, told the Hackney Citizen: “It’s important we have a proportionate approach to risk. Having said that, people have every right to come and see their elected representatives, and we’d hate to do anything to undermine that.”

Councillor Ian Sharer, who does carry one of the alarms

Cllr Ian Sharer, a Liberal Democrat representative for Cazenove ward in Stamford Hill, said he did carry one of the attack alarms around with him.

“Under normal circumstances, I probably would not have even taken it, but Stamford Hill is a bit under siege at the moment with security people everywhere,” he said.

The cost of stationing security personnel at ward surgeries would be “probably quite horrendous”, he said, meaning he would not be in favour of this measure in his ward.

Asked what the attack alarm device did if activated, Cllr Sharer said: “It presumably makes a loud noise – I don’t know, I haven’t pressed it yet.”