Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, and David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, were among the Labor MPs who criticized her behaviour.
“crying crowd”
On Saturday, Ms Jennix defended herself in a statement posted on Twitter, saying a “crying crowd” had “insulted” MPs as she entered Downing Street.
She wrote: “After receiving a huge amount of abuse from some of the people who have been there over the years, as well as having seven death threats in the last four years – two of which were in the last few weeks and are currently being investigated by the police – I had come to the end of his strength.
“I answered and stood up for myself. Why should anyone put up with this kind of treatment? I should have shown more composure, but [I] I am only human.”
A man was arrested in May after a threat about Ms Jenkins was made to security staff at Morley Town Hall in her constituency.
In September 2019, Ms Jenkins, a staunch Eurosceptic, discovered graffiti on her office wall that read ‘Andrea, just kill yourself [please]’ amid the deadlock in Parliament over Brexit.
She revealed on Twitter that in the summer of that year a constituent of hers “was in court” after he “threatened to tear up… (my) face… There shouldn’t be a double standard when it comes to abusing MPs or anyone”.
Ms Jenkins has been MP for Morley and Outwood since winning the seat from Ed Balls, Labour’s former shadow chancellor, in 2015.
She remained loyal to Mr Johnson during the scandal-ridden final few months of his premiership and said before last month’s confidence vote that the prime minister had been forced to deal with “the greatest challenges of any peacetime leader”.
A member of the Eurosceptic organization Leave Means Leave, she has been highly critical of Theresa May’s handling of Brexit and has been vice-chair of the Tories’ European Backbench Study Group since 2019.
On Friday night she said she was “honoured” to accept her new position, adding: “Our education and care systems are helping to shape the next generation and lay the foundations for the future.”
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