Prime Minister Theresa May has warned politicians must "think very carefully" about the way they speak to one another, after one MP threatened to "chloroform" Berwick-upon-Tweed MP Anne-Marie Trevelyan.
Mrs Trevelyan revealed last week that a colleague had texted her the comment in the run-up to a vote on Prime Minister Theresa May's proposed Brexit withdrawal agreement.
The colleague, who she did not name, had been attempting to persuade her to back the deal. And when Mrs Trevelyan made it clear she wouldn't, the colleague made an attempted joke about knocking her out and dragging her through the "yes" lobby, so that she would be counted as voting in favour.
Labour MP Seema Malholtra asked Theresa May to remove the whip from the offending MP, which would mean expelling him from the Conservative group in the House of Commons.
Ms Malholtra said: "Hate crime is on the rise, and our democracy is increasingly based on fear, both in Parliament and in the country.
"Shocking Home Office figures show that hate crimes doubled from 2011 to more than 100,000 last year.
"The country looks to politicians to set a high standard, but last week the Prime Minister’s allies were texting fellow MPs saying: 'I’m going to chloroform you and drag you through the lobbies' to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal.
"Does she find that behaviour acceptable, or will she be removing the Whip from the offending Member?"
Mrs May said that Ms Malholtra "is absolutely right that politicians at all levels need to think very carefully about the terms in which we address others and in which we put our arguments".
However, she went on to talk about abuse aimed at MPs from people outside Parliament.
"There are many Members across this House who have suffered significant verbal abuse and online abuse of various sorts. This is a matter that we should all be taking seriously, and I will be ensuring that, across this House, we work to ensure that people are not subject to the sort of abuse that, sadly, some Members have been subjected to from outside this House."
In a comment on Twitter, Mrs Trevelyan said: "My colleague clearly thought it funny. I did not."
