Piers Corbyn arrested on suspicion of calling for MPs’ offices to be burned down

Piers Corbyn has been arrested on suspicion of encouraging people to burn down MPs’ offices.

The Metropolitan police said the man in his 70s – whom it did not name – was arrested in Southwark, south London, in the early hours of Sunday.

“The arrest relates to a video posted online in which people were encouraged to burn down MPs’ offices,” the force said. Earlier, the Met said it was assessing a video that appears to show Corbyn, 74, calling for MPs’ offices to be burned down.

The video, shared on social media, shows Corbyn, a prominent anti-lockdown protester and brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, criticising politicians who voted for Covid restrictions.

After urging the crowd to “hammer to death those scum who have decided to go ahead with introducing new fascism”, Corbyn appears to tell a crowd in the video: “You’ve got to get a list of them … and if your MP is one of them, go to their offices and, well, I would recommend burning them down, OK. But I can’t say that on air. I hope we’re not on air.”

He also says: “We’ve got to take down these lying MPs. And we’ve got to support and welcome all of those who have rebelled or voted against Boris, ie rebelled from the Tories or my brother and his mates who voted against the measures yesterday, which is a step forward”.

Legislation to introduce vaccine certificates in a bid to slow the spread of the Omicron variant passed on Tuesday, despite a rebellion of 99 Conservative MPs voting against.

On Saturday, Piers Corbyn addressed crowds outside Downing Street at an anti-vaccine protest in Westminster. Thousands of protesters had gathered from 12pm in Parliament Square, from where they marched through the capital. According to the Met, officers suffered minor injuries during “scuffles”.

Police say that the arrest, on suspicion of encouragement to commit arson, took place at 1.45am.

The home secretary called the police to investigate on Saturday evening, describing the video as “sickening”. Priti Patel wrote in a tweet: “The Piers Corbyn video is sickening. I back the police to take the strongest possible action against him”.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper also condemned the video as “appalling”. She wrote: “We have lost two MPs to terrible violence in recent years – we know how incredibly serious this is.”

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