The Labour MP Jo Cox has been murdered, she died following a shooting in Birstall in her constituency of Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire. According to various initial press reports, Ms Cox intervened in a struggle between two men. Then one of the men allegedly pulled out a gun from a bag and fired two, maybe three shots at her. Another man who tried to disarm the gunman received stab wounds.
According to Business Insider magazine the alleged gunman has been named locally and by police as Tommy Mair, a man described by some locals as ‘a loner’. There were some reports that the gunman shouted out ‘Britain first’, the name of a right wing political party, at the time of the attack, but later there seems to be a degree of doubt from some eyewitnesses that this is what he said. The Britain First party was very quick to deny any connection to this gunman or that he was a member. That didn’t stop seemingly left-leaning types on social media exploiting the attack by calling for Britain First to be made a proscribed terrorist organisation.
The motivation for this attack will no doubt become more clear over time and there is a lot of speculation about why this happened. Was it as first described, a fight between two blokes and Ms Cox got involved and wasn’t the primary target? Or, was Ms Cox targeted for a particular reason? There is, as you might guess, a considerable amount of speculation, some of it with various degrees of plausibility, and other theories that are well away with the tin-foil hatted fairies. Either way it’s a terrible attack. We should, many will concur, be able to agree or disagree about political matters without resorting to violence. Attacks like these damage that consensus.
I disagreed vehemently with Ms Cox’s politics, especially her ‘refugee’ advocacy, just as I disagree with the politics of many others, but it’s vital that people should be able to disagree without violence.
It seems that being an MP and having a lot of contact with the public and having regular MP Surgeries, does put them in a vulnerable position. In the last few years we’ve had several serious but thankfully non-fatal attacks on MP’s. The House of Commons has lost 46 MP’s in total through murder since 1300 and 5 since 1979, and all those attacks since 1979 have been terrorist attacks, but we don’t know the motivations for this particular attack. In this case we cannot discount the random nutter scenario. Terrorism and random nutters all make the security situation for MP’s difficult. Unfortunately Ms Cox’s death takes the toll up to 47, less then some countries with more violent politics but a death that should not have happened all the same.
Dee Collins, Acting Chief Constable for West Yorkshire Police, gave the sad news of Ms Cox’s death to a press conference. She said that the police were not looking for any other suspects, apart from the man arrested. The Police and Crime Commissioner for the area, Mark Burns-Williamson paid tribute to Ms Cox and stated that this was a purely localised incident and the gunman appeared to be acting alone.
My condolences to Ms Cox’s family, her constituents and to all those who mourn.
Links
Brietbart coverage of this story with regular updates
Business Insider coverage
http://uk.businessinsider.com/breaking-news-jo-cox-has-been-shot-and-stabbed-2016-6
Check out the breitbart coverage on this.
Leftards and MSM busy polluting the news reports.
continued……….and much virtue signalling being flaunted.
“The motivation for this attack will no doubt become more clear over time…”
But long after the referendum is over…