Rising star in Britain's parliament assassinated
LONDON — An up-and-coming member of Britain's parliament was shot and stabbed to death Thursday in an attack that stunned the nation and brought the country's European Union referendum campaign to an abrupt halt just a week before the vote.
The killing was of the sort that has become all too common in the United States but is virtually unheard of in Britain: without warning, hyper-violent and ultimately, perhaps, inexplicable.
It claimed as its victim Jo Cox, a widely respected 41-year-old member of the center-left Labor Party who won election last year after a career in humanitarian work and who was widely respected for her outspoken advocacy on behalf of refugees and civilians in Syria.
Police officials in the northern English region of West Yorkshire said Cox was pronounced dead just before 2 p.m. local time, an hour after she was assaulted outside a library near the city of Leeds. A 52-year-old man was taken into custody, and police said he was the only suspect.
Officials did not provide a motive for the killing. British media organizations including the Guardian and Sky News quoted witnesses as saying the assailant shouted “Britain first!” during and after the attack.
Britain First is the name of a far-right group that stages provocative anti-Muslim demonstrations. After the attack, the organization posted a statement on its website denying involvement and saying it “would never encourage behavior of this sort.”
Britain's Press Association news agency quoted a witness, Hithem Ben Abdallah, as saying Cox got involved in a scuffle between two men in Birstall, a small market town about 200 miles north of London.
Abdallah said one of the men was fighting with Cox, and then a gun went off twice and “she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding” on the ground.
Witnesses said the assailant appeared to have been waiting for Cox outside the library, where she had been meeting constituents as part of her usual weekly schedule.
The man was not named by police but was identified in the British media as Tommy Mair, a local resident whom neighbors described as quiet and devoted to his mother. Family members said they were astonished by the arrest and that Mair had never expressed strong political views, but that he had an obsessive personality.
Witnesses recounted the savage attack in which the assailant targeted Cox with a gun that was either homemade or antique, as well as with a knife. The attacker continued to stab and kick Cox after she had fallen to the ground, bleeding.
The killing shook Britain to the core and prompted an outpouring of grief across the political spectrum. It happened as the country heads into the homestretch of a bitter campaign to determine whether to stay in the EU, with a vote scheduled next Thursday.
The pro- and anti-EU camps announced that they were suspending their campaigns at least until the weekend. Cox was a supporter of keeping Britain in the 28-nation bloc, but she was lauded Thursday by those on both sides of the debate.
“We've lost a great star,” Prime Minister David Cameron told the BBC. “She had a huge heart. She was a very compassionate, campaigning MP. She was a bright star, no doubt about it — a star for her constituents, a star for parliament, and a star right across the House, and we have lost a star.”
Cameron's predecessor, former prime minister Gordon Brown, described the attack as “a devastating blow to our democracy.” Cox had worked as an adviser to Brown's wife, Sarah Brown, on women's and children's health campaigns.
“Sarah and I were privileged to work with Jo and her husband, Brendan, over many years and in her tireless efforts on behalf of poor and desolate children and mothers,” Brown wrote. “She went to some of the most dangerous places in the world. The last place she should have been in danger was in her hometown.”
Cox, the mother of two young children, was elected in May 2015. She was national chair of Labor Women's Network and a senior adviser to the Freedom Fund, a group that campaigns against slavery and other domestic and workplace abuses.
Her husband, Brendan, released a statement saying his wife would have had no regrets about her life.
“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,” he wrote. “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.”
