Tributes paid to slain British lawmaker

LEIGH-ON-SEA — David Amess was a man of the people, a hard-working British lawmaker who had no grand political ambitions beyond serving those who had elected him for nigh-on 40 years.

His shocking death at the hands of a knifewielding man at a church where he was meeting voters has reopened questions about the security needs of Britain’s members of Parliament as they go about their daily work.

Police, who have said it was a terroristrelated attack, continued Saturday to question a 25-year-old British man.

For the second time in five years, Britain’s political leaders put their differences aside to gather Saturday morning at the scene of a fallen colleague. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, stood side-by-side and laid flowers as they paid tribute to the longserving lawmaker, who was stabbed to death less than 24 hours earlier.

The slaying of the 69-year-old Conservative lawmaker at a regular meeting with local voters has caused shock and anxiety across Britain’s political spectrum, not least because it is reminiscent of the 2016 murder of Labour lawmaker Jo Cox by a far-right extremist in her own small-town constituency.