Chris Bryant MP defiant after man arrested following death threat

The Labour MP for Rhondda, Chris Bryant, has remained defiant after South Wales Police detailed how they had arrested a man on suspicion of malicious communication.

Mr Bryant was allegedly on the receiving end of a death threat following a tweet which he sent on Saturday.  In his initial tweet Mr Bryant had called on politicians to be kind to each other saying, “‘Let’s all send a kind message on Twitter today to a politician we disagree with.  Let’s eliminate the negative”.

However in a follow up tweet on Sunday, Mr Bryant drew attention to the political atmosphere by stating, “You only have to look through some of the responses to this tweet to see the poison that is infecting British politics. And now I’ve had yet again another death threat”.

An emotional Mr Bryant, speaking on BBC TV’s Breakfast programme this morning refused to be cowed by the abuse stating, “It is not just about me”, and adding, “I am passionate about wanting to change the world and nobody is going to stop me”.

Chris Byrant is a former priest who was first elected to Parliament in 2001.  In 2019, he came second to Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the contest to succeed John Bercow as Commons Speaker.

Mr Bryant’s comments come as Westminster is today set to pay tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who was killed holding at constituency surgery in Leigh on Sea in Essex last Friday.