“Where we see hatred, where we find division, where we see intolerance, we must drive it out of our politics and out of our public life and out of our communities”, he said.
Advertisement
The MP for Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire spent her adult life working for the benefit of others, including as an aid worker with development charity Oxfam and finally as an MP. Many cried and hugged each other, some just stood silently.
Police are now leading an investigation to explore potential motives for the murder, looking into emerging evidence that the suspect had an interest in gun making and far-right movements like neo-Nazism.
“She was an intelligent lady, she was a amusing lady, she was a very, very caring lady”, said Reverend Tina Walker, who works for the local Church of England diocese and served on a fair trade committee with Ms. Cox.
It’s not yet clear how the killing of a Labour Party lawmaker who campaigned for Britain to remain in the European Union will affect next week’s referendum, but what is certain is that her death will be a turning point in what has been an often vitriolic battle over the country’s future. Ms. Cox supported the Remain side and she was actively involved in Syrian refugee issues.
Before Cox’s death, that debate had reached levels of anger nearly unprecedented in the UK The closeness of the polls as the June 23 referendum approached led both sides to escalate their language.
In a remarkable show of political unity, David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn travelled to Ms Cox’s West Yorkshire constituency to pay tribute to the MP alongside her constituents, and to condemn a crime that the Labour leader called “an assault on democracy itself”. “We’ve got to stop calling people scoundrels”. Some investors suggested sympathy for Cox could boost the Remain campaign which opinion polls indicate had fallen behind Leave. He was arrested and questioned, before being charged. He also injured another man who tried to intervene.
Police haven’t charged Mair, who was taken into custody after officers pinned him to the ground on a nearby street shortly after the attack, according to the Press Association. The lawn and shrubbery outside were neatly trimmed.
Neighbours described a man who had lived in the same house for at least 40 years and helped locals weed their flowerbeds and inquired after their pets.
The temporary chief constable for West Yorkshire Police, Dee Collins, reported in a statement that two medical specialists had examined Mair and determined that “he is both fit for detention and fit for interview” despite his prior use of mental health services. His brother ran into trouble with drugs and left home years ago and his grandparents died.
He lived at the same house for more than 40 years, for a long time on his own after the death of his grandparents.
And a United States civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), based in Alabama, claimed it had obtained records showing a Thomas Mair had links with the neo-Nazi organisation National Alliance (NA) dating back to 1999.
Meanwhile, Mair’s brother said Mair had not expressed strong political views.
He did appear to have mental health problems.
Advertisement
Mair reportedly told the Huddersfield Examiner report that voluntary work had “done me more good than all the psychotherapy and medication in the world”.
