BRITISH MP SLAIN
Link to EU vote suspected
Jo Cox, a British politician campaigning for the country to stay in the European Union, was shot three times Thursday and repeatedly stabbed by a killer screaming “Britain first.”
The murder of the 41-year-old mother of two, the first killing of a British MP for more than a quarter-century, prompted widespread revulsion and led to the suspension of campaigning for the EU referendum. Police arrested a 52-year-old former psychiatric patient, named locally as Tommy Mair.
Cox, a Labour Party legislator who praised the contribution of immigrants to Britain and championed the cause of war-scarred Syrian refugees, was attacked outside a library in Birstall, northern England, after a regular meeting with constituents.
“This is absolutely tragic and dreadful news,” said Prime Minister David Cameron. “We have lost a great star. She was a great campaigning MP with huge compassion and a big heart.”
According to witnesses, her killer used an antique or a home-made gun that he calmly reloaded with a single bullet between shots. As she lay bleeding to death, he repeatedly kicked her before walking away.
Eyewitnesses said as the man shot and stabbed Cox, he shouted, “Britain First, Britain First, Britain First.”
Police will investigate whether Cox, MP for Batley and Spen in Yorkshire, was targeted because of her support for the campaign to remain in the European Union. A referendum next week on the question has deeply divided the country and led to much heated debate.
Both the Vote Leave and Britain Stronger in Europe campaigns suspended activity after her death.
Cox had spoken out against the “racism and fascism” of Britain First, an antiIslamic right-wing group.
In her first speech to Parliament last year, she also described how the area she represented had “been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan.”
Immigration has been a flashpoint in the referendum campaign, with many “leave” supporters eager to curb the number of migrants to Britain by leaving the EU, which operates on the principle of free movement of people among member states.
Cox’s husband, Brendan, released a statement after her death saying: “Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. More difficult, more painful, less joyful, less full of love.
“Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people. She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now: One, that our precious children are bathed in love; and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn’t have a creed, race or religion. It is poisonous.”
Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, said: “In the coming days, there will be questions to answer about how and why she died. But for now all our thoughts are with Jo’s husband Brendan and their two young children.”
Gabrielle Giffords, the former Democrat congresswoman from Arizona who was shot in 2011, said the killing was a “manifestation of a coarseness in our politics and hatred toward the other that we must not tolerate.”
Cox was the first MP to be murdered since Ian Gow, who was assassinated by the Irish Republican Army in a car bomb outside his home in 1990.