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I have just had the misfortune to visit Johnny Mercer MP's Facebook page entitled "Johnny For Plymouth" and it's a chilling insight into the dark underside of the internet, littered with calls for acts of violence to be perpetrated against human rights lawyers.

Having worked in the legal sector for a continuous period of more than two decades, I have noted that over the last couple of years, the level of abuse levelled towards my colleagues in the sector has snowballed from virtually non-existent, to almost daily.

On a wave of xenophobia and bigotry, populist demagogues like Mr Mercer have been whipping up hatred against those who seek to uphold democracy and the rule of law. I note that he has done absolutely nothing to condemn the acts of violence threatened by his legion of supporters on his Facebook page. Quite the opposite, in fact.

At a time when some MP's are calling for greater support from the police to protect them in an era of increasing violent extremism, it is bitterly ironic that some of their own profession are directly responsible for whipping up this extremism with deliberately misleading falsehoods.