UK: Pro-EU MP Shot and Stabbed to Death by Apparent Brexit Supporter

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UK: Pro-EU MP Shot and Stabbed to Death by Apparent Brexit Supporter

June 16th, 2016

Awake Goy

An attacker who witnesses said shouted “Britain First” shot and stabbed a member of British Parliament Thursday near Leeds, killing her, police confirmed.

Officers arrested an unnamed 52-year-old man in connection with the attack and recovered weapons, saying they were not seeking any other possible suspects. “Britain First” is a slogan commonly used by activists who support Britain leaving the European Union.

The lawmaker was identified as 41-year-old Jo Cox, a member of the Labor Party representing Batley, and a mother of two.

“Somebody tried to grab [the attacker], wrestling with him and then he wielded a knife, like a hunting knife, just started lunging at her with a knife half a dozen times,” Clarke Rothwell, the owner of a nearby cafe in Birstall, told the BBC.

“He was stabbing her with a footlong knife multiple times while shouting Britain First, Britain First, Britain First,” Rothwell told The Telegraph.

Investigators described the attack as a “localized incident.”

No serving U.K. member of Parliament has been killed since 1990, when the Irish Republican Army killed Conservative lawmaker Ian Gow with a booby-trap bomb placed under his car outside his English home.

“We were extremely shocked to see these reports,” Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the Britain First movement, told The Guardian, saying Britain First would not condone that behavior. Britain’s Vote Leave and Vote Remain groups suspended campaigning after the attack.

The suspect ultimately kicked the lawmaker on the ground and walked off “very coolly, very slowly,” leaving her bleeding between two cars, witness Hithem Ben Abdallah told Sky News. “A very courageous man from the dry cleaners tried to restrain him and he couldn’t stop him because all of a sudden he pulled a gun. She was a standing still target for him when he shot her.”

Police did not reveal details on a possible motive. Cox wrote an editorial last week for the Yorkshire Post opposing the so-called “Brexit,” ahead of the referendum vote scheduled for June 23.

She also has made finding a solution to the Syrian civil war a top priority and has been critical of Britain’s reluctance to deepen its military involvement against Islamic State terrorists as part of that effort.