The Guardian has good coverage of the political assassination to occurred to today in Birstall, England. Freshman Labour MP Jo Cox was cut down by a madman wielding a gun and a knife, and reportedly yelling “Britain First.”
That’s probably a reference to the Brexit debate going on in Britain right now. Polls show that the public is going to vote to sever ties to the European Union in a June 23rd referendum. On the other hand, the “Britain First” thing may have been a reference to a far-right party of the same name.
Our attention should be first and foremost on the victim and her family, and only secondarily on the motivations for and repercussions of this murder.
Jo Cox was an interesting person. She was the mother of two small children. She and her husband’s London home was a barge in the Thames where they were scheduled to have a large solstice party next week. She was an advisor to former Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s wife. Prior to becoming a MP, she served as the Global Policy Director of Oxfam.
Since becoming an MP, she argued strenuously in favor of humanitarian intervention in Syria. And she was staunchly in favor of Britain remaining in the European Union. She had initially supported Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, but had revoked her support more recently, accusing Corbyn of “weak leadership, poor judgment and a mistaken sense of priorities.”
Here are some eyewitness accounts of what happened to her:
The shopkeeper in a greengrocer opposite Birstall library, Golden D’Licious, told the Guardian that he believed the attacker had been waiting for the MP outside the library.
“I was inside the shop and all I heard was a scream and then the gunshot,” he said, without giving his name. “I went out and everyone was dispersing. I couldn’t see because it happened behind a car.”
Terry Flynn-Edwards, who runs the Divine hair studio opposite the scene of the attack, said a man from the dry cleaners had tried to stop the assault. She said: “She walked out of the library with her PA and he was waiting for her. He stabbed her first and this guy tried to stop him and then he shot her.”
But one witness, Hithem Ben Abdallah, 56, who was in the cafe next door to the library shortly after 1pm, said the MP was involved in an altercation between two arguing men.
He told PA a man in a baseball cap “suddenly pulled a gun from his bag” and after a brief scuffle with another man the MP became involved.
He added: “He was fighting with her and wrestling with her and then the gun went off twice and then she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding on the floor.”
Clarke Rothwell, another witness, told BBC News there was a direct altercation between Cox and a man carrying a gun, who “purposefully” targeted her.
“He shot this lady and then shot her again,” he said. “He lent down. Someone was wrestling with him and he was wielding a knife and lunging at her. Three times she was shot. People were trying to help her.”
This is a terrible tragedy, and we’ll need to learn more before we reach any conclusions about motivation. If it was related to her support for remaining in the E.U., it could bolster that side in the referendum. If was related to her support for Syrian intervention, it might have the opposite effect.
But enough speculation. For now, let’s just offer our condolences.
Shocking. The toxic sludge Rupert murdoch pumped into the soil is seeping to the surface. Just shocking
From what I read on a couple of British news sites, the man identified as the attacker was known in the local neighborhood as a bit of a loner, who did occasional gardening work for people. Was described as kind of an oddball. Witnesses to the event said the gun he used looked like a very old World War I era revolver.
Witness reports so far are not at all in agreement with each other. More interviews and collection and analysis of all the forensic data will better inform us.
Yep, for sure. Initial reports are always problematic.
I am having a déjà vu feeling.
In the very heated campaign for the euro-referendum in Sweden, foreign minister and leading proponent of a yes to the euro Anna Lindh was stabbed to death. The killer had mental problems, had failed to get himself checked in at a mental clinic (he had tried), had an unclear ball of grievances and a wish to kill someone important.
In the end, it didn’t have much effect on the referendum. No won as the polls had predicted.
Framing this murder on Brexit is speculative or just sensationalism. Your title should simply read “Labour MP.” Corbyn and the Labour party have joined part of Cameron’s Tory party in the Remain campaign.
The yell has NOT been corroborated and I refrained from using it in my early posts:
○ Labour MP Jo Cox Dies After Attack
The police have named the person as a local man in her constituency as Thomas Mair. The police spokesperson has not stated a motive, only that it was a localized incident. Jo Cox was doing her duty as a MP headed to a local library to meet people in what is called “surgery.”
○ Jo Cox: The rise of Batley MP from Heckmondwike to Westminster | Yorkshire Evening Post |
○ Hundreds attend moving vigil in memory of MP Jo Cox in Birstall
No political motive about the Brexit discussion … a local incident waiting to happen for more than a decade.
○ Thomas Mair a Long Time neo-Nazi of National Alliance
Cross-posted from my recent diary – Thomas Mair a Long Time neo-Nazi of National Alliance.
Confirmation the incident is local and had no political motive other than a revenge killing for Jo Cox’s stand on immigration policy. Brexit was not the motive as Jo Cox spoke for the Remain campaign alongside Tory leader PM David Cameron. Jo Cox was vocal in local politics and a soft target for a deranged person fed neo-Nazi and white supremacist propaganda for over a decade. The killer found a soft target as all mass murderers look for. See also link to Breivik and his warped concept of Europe and immigration policy. Islamophobia is vitriol and incitement for hate crimes. When will the likes of these “prominent” politicians be held responsible by the electorate.
I’m not gonna lie, I hope they vote Brexit.
Other than that, it is a shocking tragedy. I wish we weren’t accustomed to such things on this side of the ocean.
rec’d for second sentence. Willing to discuss the first.
Sure, I basically am hoping for a Brexit for a few reasons most of them having to do with their relationship to the EU.
They always demand special snowflake treatment and are always trying to slow walk integration. I think this is detrimental to the EU as a whole as well as the EU itself being somewhat more leftist than Britain a number of issues like immigration and environmentalism. I think the EU can make more progress with Britain on the outside.
Also, without the lever of Britain influencing the EU the US gains more leverage over Britain (yay national power) but also less over the EU meaning that the EU’s generally laudatory stances on things like due process and data privacy are more in opposition to our own. Better to draw a clear contrast than to have Britain muddy the waters.
Also on a personal level I really don’t like Britain. I see Life Liberty and Property as inferior to Liberty Equality Fraternity and blame them really kickstarting the idea of economy over people in the modern age.
A potential downside to your position is a renewed economic alliance with the US. We could adopt them and and their royal family, which many Americans are already in thrall of, to serve as head-of-state to take all that pressure off the WH.
I prefer a parliamentary system so I could live with the costs of a head of state/royal family figurehead. It probably beats the instant-polarization phenomena that afflicts the current presidency.
How about an elected head-of-state with no power and duties limited to being photo-op ready forty hours a week for appearances at the grand opening of new important facilities (like bridges, stores, etc.), welcoming important visitors from abroad and “hosting” the lavish dinners, and signing condolence books for tragedies. Could pull the monies already being spent on this stuff from the various federal agencies to pay for it. By electing a head-of-state, we could dump the family if they prove to embarrassing or become too unattractive. Elected every four years in mid-terms which would increase voter interest and participation. (Would need to include some sort of minimum qualifications.)
This would reduce the need to turn the first family into celebrities and the public either trashing or praising their wardrobes, hair, and make-up.
But we might have a civil war between the House of Windsor and the House of Clinton. And neither one smells like a rose.
The way things stand now, one must be born royal. Royals may overcome occasionally inappropriate behavior, but inappropriate birth (commoner) can only be overcome through marriage. Expect it will take some time before a queen or king marries a same sex commoner.
I see your points. I thought you meant that Brexit would be good for the people of the UK. Another reason for favoring it would be the potential for breakup of the UK since it seems that the Scots prefer the UK. If all the Celtic people (Irish, Scots, Welsh) stood together, the English would be in deep doo-doo. Payback for centuries of empire building. IIRC, at the end, the Roman Empire was just a handful of locations in Italy.
Local politicians in “Crown Jewels” like Gaul and Hispania having made their accommodations with the Goths. (The local aristocrats were literate and knew how to make the cities and services run, why not pledge allegiance to the Gothic King instead of the Emperor of the week in far off Rome. The King’s soldiers were HERE. I expect our 1% to behave the same with China et al)
Scots prefer the EU, not UK, of course.
Three witnesses reported that the murderer was shouting “Britain first”, the name of a far right fascist group.
The Scottish people have been strongly opposed to the UK leaving the EU. Recall that the Scottish independence referendum a few years ago was defeated, but by no means trounced.
If the UK withdraws from the EU, that’s likely to be the end of the United Kingdom as presently constituted, because the Scots may vote to go their own way.
Add to that problems with North Ireland, because right now there is free travel and exchange. With Brexit a border might very well be re-established. This would not be good from either London or Dublin’s perspective let alone how the people sympathetic with the IRA would feel and what they might do.
Coulda shoulda woulda. No one knows what will happen with Scotland.
In Canada, they have had 2? 3? referenda on Quebec separation, and sense has prevailed. Scotland is not viable as an independent country, but of course neither is Kosova.
I hope they vote for Brexit. The unelected technocratic overlords in Brussels need to get taken down. And immigration is out of control in Britain.
Scotland is more populous than many independent countries in the area, including Ireland, Norway, and Iceland. It’s certainly viable. Perhaps not optimal, but viable.
especially if they rejoin the EU which is likely
RIP.
Far too young.
Sigh, another nationalist nutter with a gun.
Poor woman, a progressive politician from what I’ve read.
Lucky he wasn’t an Arab yelling you know what or there’d be a total lock down and further carpet bombing of innocents.
Gun crime is so rare in the UK, mental illness sadly not so much.
Brexit has good and bad to it, good if it punishes our Highnesses in Brussels, giving them the short shape shock they have been begging for on bent knee. Bad for the community of Europe which has benefited in many ways from a closer union, before 2007 and the neoliberal brain rot that has made EU paladins terminally insane. I thought Barroso was hitting bottom but Jungker, Tusk, Disselbloem, Schultz, Schauble and Merkel are all sellouts of the first water, horny for TTIP and active worms in the apple, like their cousins in the UK but responsible for the fates of far more people.
Renzi, Hollande fake left governments in hock to the bizniz lobbies, arms, oil, the works.
Only a country as important as England leaving could shake the foundations, and if things go better for the UK, they will be followed by Italy and others, certainly a referendum on the currency would go for exit as it is horribly obvious by now to all that the Very Good Idea of a common currency has despaired even economy under its aegis as it’s sole reason for being seems to be protecting the savings of septuagerian Germans from the dreaded boogyman of inflation.
Greece gone to the dogs, Italy on the verge, France in shambles, England with political murder and Farage smirking like the devil he is, it sucks mightily in Yurp.
To be fair to England they have absorbed -not always terribly well- a huge amount 0f immigration since the 50’sixties, when any Commonwealth member with enough money for a passport and a plane ride could come, leading to a positive multi-cultural effect for the most part. The Little Englanders have been whipped into froth by the gutter press and now Boris, a mini Trump for our sins.
If it kills the Tory party for ever as it should and probably will, then maybe the sacrifices will be repaid with interest. Until then my heart is sad at the continuing erosion of what promised 20 years ago to be the most humanitarian Union of States ever.
America and Russia not too happy about that, unfortunately…
Now we have the spectacle of Fortress Europe at its ugliest, the graveyard of the Mediterranean a sting to our collective conscience.
A great idea but run -and ruined- by venal fools.
R.I.P.
○ Far-right poses greater threat to Britain than Islamist terror – report | RT |
○ Dutch Likud Vilifies Guest Speaker Haneen Zoabi, an Arab-Israeli MK
Posted in my diary – Far-right Extremists More Virulent Than Islamists In UK-US.