Two people have been charged with arson over a fire at the constituency office of the Conservative MP Mike Freer, police said.
Paul Harwood, 42, and Zara Kasory, 32, both of no fixed address, were arrested on Wednesday and have been charged with arson with intent over the fire in a shed at the office in Ballards Lane in Finchley, north London, on 24 December, the Metropolitan police said.
Both appeared at Willesden magistrates court on Thursday.
The pair were remanded in custody to appear at Harrow crown court on 1 February.
The pair were also each charged with arson without intent over a fire at the back of a restaurant in Long Lane, north London, at about 11pm the same night.
There were no reported injuries in either fire.
The force said the incident at Freer’s office was not being treated as a hate crime.
Freer said the suspected arson was one of many worrying incidents he had faced. In 2021, the man who went on to murder the MP David Amess visited Freer’s constituency office but the MP was unexpectedly absent.
Ali Harbi Ali, 26, stabbed Amess, the Conservative MP for Southend West, more than 20 times during a constituency surgery at a church in Essex after spending two years researching which MP to murder, his trial heard.
Ali had visited Freer’s constituency office where he was spotted peering through a window, and also researched the Tory ministers Michael Gove, Dominic Raab and Ben Wallace and the Labour leader, Keir Starmer.
Freer has been an MP since 2010. After Hamas launched its 7 October attack on Israel, he urged the government to launch repatriation flights for Britons stranded in Israel.
He has repeatedly criticised the government’s “heated, toxic debates” over LGBTQ+ issues, and likened its treatment of transgender people to conversations about gay people in the 1970s and 80s.
The suspected arson attack comes after many Labour MPs voiced concerns about their safety, as pro-Palestine protesters targeted their offices after criticism of the party’s stance on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Dozens of activists held protests outside the offices of the Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft on Friday, a day after hundreds gathered outside the east London office of Rushanara Ali. Apsana Begum, who backed a ceasefire, said she had received “Islamophobic abuse and death threats”.
MPs thought to be at the highest risk as the conflict escalated were contacted by officials on how best to protect themselves around Westminster.
