A homeless man collapsed and was found dying next to an entrance to the Houses of Parliament, HuffPost UK can reveal.
Emergency services were called to the scene at 11.30pm on Tuesday night and found the man unresponsive.
Medics administered first aid and rushed the man to a central London hospital, where he died in the early hours of Wednesday.
He lost consciousness close to revolving doors used by MPs and Commons staff every day.
Friends of the man described how they sleep in the walkway while powerful people ignore them and walk past.
The man, believed to be a 43-year-old Hungarian national called Gyula Remes, had recently found work as a kitchen assistant at Charing Cross station and had been sleeping rough for months, they said.
It came as politicians inside Westminster were embroiled in a row over whether Jeremy Corbyn had called Theresa May a “stupid woman” during a Commons clash over Brexit.
The man’s cause of death is not known but his friends say he had taken the street drug Spice that night as well as drunk alcohol.
Police have confirmed that his death is not being treated as suspicious.
Jamie Leigh, a friend, described her grief and shock.
“This shouldn’t happen in our country,” she told HuffPost UK. “I blame Theresa May. People just walk past us and they are supposed to be going into that building to change the world that we live in.”
Leigh found herself homeless when her relationship with her partner broke down and has been sleeping near the entrance to the parliamentary estate for weeks.
“He deserved a home,” she said. “He needed a place where he could sleep.
“He came to London for a better life but he just had nowhere to go.”
Labour Party chairman Ian Lavery made an emotional statement.
Credit: Faceook
He said: “Like most MPs, I’ve left the palace to head home for the Christmas.
“I was almost brought to tears leaving by the tube station exit to see the homeless people lying there in such a desperate state.
“Christmas is an event which most there will take no part in. No family, no presents, no glad tidings of joy for them - just the constant battle to survive.
“Homelessness has drastically escalated since 2010. A consequence of austerity measures - or simply deliberate neglect - by a Conservative government which has abandoned hundreds of thousands of people who are in desperate need.”
A spokesman for the Met Police said: “At around 11.30pm on December 18, we were alerted by officers from British Transport Police to a man collapsed in an underpass near to Westminster underground station.
“First aid was administered by the British Transport Police officers and the man was taken to a central London hospital, where he died in the early hours of December 19.
“The death is not being treated as suspicious.”
It is the second such incident outside the doors of parliament. Marcos Amaral Gourgel, a 35-year-old Portugese man, was found dead in the same spot in February.