Hundreds turn up for UK lawmaker’s funeral

LONDON

Hundreds of mourners turned out Friday to see the funeral cortège of the Labour lawmaker Jo Cox, who was shot dead last month.

Schoolchildren and local workers were among those lining the streets in her Batley & Spen electoral district in the north of England on Friday afternoon, TV coverage showed.

The crowds threw flowers at her hearse as it passed by on its way to the funeral, which was a small, private service at her family’s request.

People in some villages watched the cortège pass in respectful silence while in others, it was received with rapturous applause.

Cox was shot and stabbed on June 16 in the street before a meeting with constituents in the town library in Birstall, in West Yorkshire.

She was airlifted to a hospital but succumbed to her injuries an hour later.

The 41-year-old mother of two had only been elected in 2015 and was the first British lawmaker to be killed in office in 26 years. Her death shocked Britain, coming at a time of heightened ethnic and community tensions during the country’s EU membership referendum campaign.

The Guardian reported a drawing of Cox had been left next to her office door with an excerpt from her maiden speech in parliament: “Far more unites us than divides us.”

Thomas Mair, a 52-year-old local resident, has been charged with Cox’s murder and will face trial in November.