Suspect in killing of UK lawmaker was supporter of far-right groups
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CAMPAIGNING in Britain’s European Union membership referendum was suspended yesterday as the country absorbed the slaying of lawmaker Jo Cox with shock — and worry that the anger unleashed by the EU campaign was somehow connected to the killing.
Prime Minister David Cameron appealed for intolerance and hatred to be driven out of politics, as a US civil rights group said the man suspected of the gun and knife attack had links to an American white supremacist organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said it has records showing Thomas Mair was a supporter of the National Alliance. The center said Mair purchased a manual from the group in 1999 that included instructions on how to build a pistol.
On its website, the center published copies of receipts showing that a Thomas Mair of West Yorkshire — the county where Cox and her suspected killer both lived — bought publications including “Chemistry of Powder and Explosives” and “Improvized Munitions Handbook.”
The address on the receipts was a house cordoned off and guarded by police yesterday.
The National Alliance was founded by William Pierce, whose book “The Turner Diaries” has been called a grisly blueprint for a race war. Timothy McVeigh based the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which killed 168 people, on a truck-bombing described in the book.
A Thomas Mair of Batley — the town where the suspect lives — was also named as a former subscriber to pro-Apartheid publication SA Patriot. In 2006, the online newsletter of far-right group the Springbok Club said Mair was “one of the earliest subscribers and supporters of SA Patriot.”
Mair, 52, was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of killing Cox, who was shot and stabbed outside a library in her northern England constituency. The suspect’s brother, Scott Mair, told reporters his brother had a history of mental illness, but was not violent.
Witnesses said Cox, a 41-year-old Labour Party legislator, was attacked by a man with a homemade or antique-looking gun. Clarke Rothwell, who runs a cafe near the scene, said the assailant shouted “Britain first” or “put Britain first” several times.
Britain First is the name of a far-right group. It disclaimed any connection to the killing.
Cox was a former aid worker who had championed the cause of Syrian refugees and campaigned for Britain to stay in the European Union.
The referendum has sparked an intense debate about immigration and Britain’s place in the world. “Leave” campaigners have said voters should quit the EU to take their country back from bureaucrats in Brussels and curb immigration from other EU nations.
Politicians from all parties have paid tribute to Cox, and Buckingham Palace said Queen Elizabeth had written to her husband, Brendan Cox. The couple had two young children.
In a show of political unity, Cameron and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn visited the site of the killing in Birstall, 320 kilometers north of London. The two men added bouquets to a huge mound of flowers left in tribute to Cox.
Cameron urged people to “value and see as precious the democracy that we have on these islands.” He added: “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.”
Corbyn said the slaying of Cox was “an attack on democracy.”
“It’s the well of hatred that killed her,” he said.
The Labour leader said Parliament would be recalled from a break on Monday so that lawmakers could pay tribute to Cox.
Earlier this year, a man was arrested on suspicion of sending a “malicious communication” to Cox.
London’s Metropolitan Police said the man received a police warning.
He “is not the man in custody” over Cox’s death, police said.
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