By Michael Sercan Daventry
LONDON
There had been nothing to suggest Thursday was anything out of the ordinary in Britain’s EU referendum campaign.
For the pro-Brexit camp, the message was to invoke immigration fears: it unveiled a poster campaign depicting a long queue of mostly non-white migrants stretching into the distance.
The pro-EU side concentrated on the economic disaster that financial leaders predicted a Brexit would trigger.
But the news that an opposition lawmaker had been killed in a gun-and-knife attack on a northern English street brought a campaign that has often been bitter and vengeful to a screeching halt.
Thursday morning, Labour parliamentarian Jo Cox had been on her way to meet her constituents in the town library in Birstall, in West Yorkshire.
What happened as she reached that meeting is not yet clear, but witnesses said she became involved in an argument with a middle-aged man.
During their conversation he produced a large gun – possibly a shotgun – and shot Cox three times. The alleged assailant, identified by several media outlets as 52-year-old Thomas Mair, stabbed her too. An elderly man who tried to intervene was also hurt in the encounter.
Cox was airlifted to hospital but died of her injuries an hour later. The 41-year-old mother of two is the first British lawmaker to be killed in office in 26 years.
Her murder shocked and stopped British politics. The official referendum campaign groups – Britain Stronger in Europe and Vote Leave – both suspended their activities as a mark of respect.
The International Monetary Fund announced it was delaying its planned report on the economic implications of Brexit. British Prime Minister David Cameron called off a planned campaigning trip to Gibraltar, on the southern tip of Spain. And Finance Minister George Osborne completely changed his speech to the Mansion House, an annual address in the heart of London’s financial center, to deliver a tribute.
It had already been a day of heated rhetoric before the news of the attack on Jo Cox broke.
The poster campaign depicting migrants had been unveiled that morning by Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-Europe U.K. Independence Party, also known as UKIP.
The large billboard depicted a long line of migrants, most of them non-white and nearly all male, curving away into the distance with the slogan “Breaking point: the EU has failed us all.”
Farage told the Guardian that morning: “This is a photograph – an accurate, undoctored photograph – taken on 15 October last year following Angela Merkel’s call in the summer and, frankly, if you believe, as I have always believed, that we should open our hearts to genuine refugees, that’s one thing.
“But, frankly, as you can see from this picture, most of the people coming are young males and, yes, they may be coming from countries that are not in a very happy state, they may be coming from places that are poorer than us, but the EU has made a fundamental error that risks the security of everybody.”
When Cox was attacked hours later, multiple witnesses reported her attacker shouting “Britain first” or “putting Britain first” – a possible reference to the far-right group Britain First, whose supporters hold anti-migrant, anti-Muslim rallies.
At this early stage the attacker’s motives cannot be verified. Other witnesses – and there were a significant number because it took place at lunchtime on a busy shopping street – reported not hearing Cox’s killer saying anything at all.
Britain First denied any involvement in the attack and there are no direct links between the far-right group and the UKIP. But for Alex Massie, a columnist for the Spectator magazine, said the anti-immigration tone adopted by Brexit advocates was bound to have consequences.
“When you shout BREAKING POINT over and over again, you don’t get to be surprised when someone breaks,” Massie wrote.
“When you present politics as a matter of life and death, as a question of national survival, don’t be surprised if someone takes you at your word. You didn’t make them do it, no, but you didn’t do much to stop it either.”
Campaign activity will remain suspended Friday, just six days before the EU referendum is held on June 23, as Britain’s political establishment comes to term with the shock.
On Thursday evening, lawmakers, including Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Jo Cox’s Labour Party, lit candles and laid flowers at a vigil outside the Houses of Parliament in London.
“We carry the banner of love for Jo. You can’t kill democracy,” read one written message left next to Jo Cox’s smiling photograph at the vigil.
Another spoke of unity: “We are not Remain/Leave, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem tonight. We are Britons with a belief in parliament and democracy x”.
Politics will have to resume before long – after all, this referendum is the most vigorous and divisive issue to engage British politics for decades – but many are hoping for a kinder rhetoric in the days to come.
