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Labour MP Who Favored Remaining In The E.U. Dies After Attack

CREDIT: SCREENSHOT/BBC
CREDIT: SCREENSHOT/BBC

Labour MP Helen Joanne “Jo” Cox was shot in West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom on Thursday and died from her injuries, according to local reports.

Mark Burns-Williamson, the West Yorkshire police and crime commissioner, announced in a press conference that Cox died and expressed his symapthies to her family. Dee Collins, the chief constable of West Yorkshire police, said that Cox was declared dead at the scene of the attack.

“At 1:48 p.m. Jo Cox was was pronounced deceased by a doctor who was working with a paramedic crew that were attending to her serious injuries,” Collins said at the conference. “This is a very significant investigation with large numbers of witnesses that have been spoken to by police at this time. There is a large and significant crime scene and there is a large police presence in the area. A full investigation is underway to establish the motive for this attack.”

Collins also noted that a 77-year-old man was also injured in the attack, but his injuries were not critical.

Details of the attack are still emerging but at least two different eyewitnesses have said the attacker shouted “Britain First,” the name of a far-right, British nationalist party that has supported the U.K. leaving the European Union. Cox had been a vocal supporter of remaining in the E.U.

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Collins said at the conference that she could not say anything about these reports, but eyewitnesses should come forward.

Earlier in the day, West Yorkshire police reported that a 52-year-old man was arrested in the area. Since then, the arrested man was confirmed to be Tommy Mair.

According to eyewitness claims, the second man who was injured in the attack had likely tried to intervene.

Hithem Ben Abdallah, who said he was in a nearby cafe at the time of the shooting and heard screaming, told the BBC, “there was a guy who was being very brave and another guy with a white baseball cap who he was trying to control and the man in the baseball cap suddenly pulled a gun from his bag.”

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After a short scuffle, he said, “the man stepped back with the gun and fired it and then he fired a second shot, as he was firing he was looking down at the ground.”

“He was kicking her as she was lying on the floor,” he added.

Cafe owner Clarke Rothwell, who also witnessed the attack, told the BBC:

I looked around and there was a man stood there in his 50s with a white baseball cap on, with a jacket and a gun — an old-fashioned looking gun in his hands. He shot this lady once and then he shot her again and she fell to the floor, leant over, shot her once more in the face area. Someone tried grappling and wrestling with him and then he wielded a knife, like a hunting knife, and just started lunging at her with a knife.

People were screaming and running from the area. People tried running towards him and as they ran towards him he was just lunging with the knife at everybody. When the gentlemen with the bald head in his 50s actually got fairly close on him and he lunged forward and stabbed him straight in the stomach. He was trying to reload his gun to shoot people nearby again.

The United Kingdom is set to vote on whether to remain in the European Union on June 23, and Cox had been in favor of remaining — making eyewitness reports that the attacker yelled “Britain First” significant. Much of the debate around the decision to remain a part of the union has been concerned with immigration and the refugee crisis, and as a result has included xenophobic and bigoted aspects — something the Britain First party has similarly been accused of in the past. Last month, the far-right nationalist party specifically threatened London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, with “direct action” and said that it “considers all Muslim elected officials as ‘occupiers’ and will start to oppose their strategy of entryism and take-over of our political system.”

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Cox, for her part, had been a vocal supporter of remaining in the E.U. “The overall benefits of EU membership are massive,” she wrote for PoliticsHome earlier this week. “From businesses in Yorkshire to the President of the United States — and pretty much everyone in between — there is now an unprecedented consensus that leaving the EU would hurt our economy and hit our pockets. We cannot allow voters to fall for the spin that a vote to leave is the only way to deal with concerns about immigration.”

The last tweet she posted also featured her joining other Remain supporters on Wednesday in a flotilla propaganda war on the Thames River.

The deputy leader of Britain First, Jayda Fransen, said the party was looking into reports about the attacker, according to the Guardian. “We were extremely shocked to see these reports and we are keen to confirm them, because of course at the moment it is hearsay,” she said. “This has just been bought to our attention. This is absolutely not the kind of behaviour we would condone.”

Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn have both expressed their shock at the attack.

Neither the Leave or Remain campaigns will be active the rest of the day.

According to the Manchester Evening News, former mayor of London Boris Johnson said that he and Defense Minister Penny Mordaunt would not campaign for “Vote Leave” the rest of the day shortly after the attack was announced. “We have decided in view of that to suspend all campaigning,” he said. “Penny and I will both be going back to London to find out more. Our thoughts are very much with Jo and her family.”

Stronger In, the official campaign to remain in the European Union, similarly said it would suspend its campaigning on Thursday before it was clear that Cox had passed away.

This piece has been updated to note that Cox has died of her injuries. This is a breaking news story and will be updated throughout the day.