Wow. It can happen anywhere. Danivon, did you know her? Sorry for England's loss.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36550304

bbauska wrote:Wow. It can happen anywhere. Danivon, did you know her? Sorry for England's loss.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-36550304

I did not, but she is my age. I could well have seen her at a national Conference.

Yes, it can. It happens a lot less often here though. We will wait until more is known about the assailant, motives and how he obtained a firearm, before deciding on the single point of blame.

Not reported by the BBC much is that witnesses reports him shouting the name of an extremist group.

nobody is safe from nut jobs. Feel free to disagree with this woman's views, vote and even campaign against her if you find her position so bad. But why kill someone for a belief that is different from your own!? While this is terrible news, I do look forward to hearing why this assailant took so drastic a position.

Usually this kind of thing is someone with severe problems. But recently with the EU referendum and the rise of far right groups like the EDL and Britain First (the latter being the one the assailant allegedly invoked), we have seen increasingly nasty rhetoric, particularly about immigrants.

I'm not sure it's right to talk about the 'rise' of these groups. It's very much a tiny group of people and always has been. The far right hasn't been so marginalised in Britain for a long time. The EDL barely exists these days.

Sassenach wrote:I'm not sure it's right to talk about the 'rise' of these groups. It's very much a tiny group of people and always has been. The far right hasn't been so marginalised in Britain for a long time. The EDL barely exists these days.

In terms of organised groups with members etc, I agree. The BNP went broke defending their leader's legal cases and split with recriminations. But those people did not disappear and reformed in various ways.

In terms of a loose set of people with similar views and the willingness to express them, I disagree. The EDL is in decline because its leader left. But he has now founded the UK arm of Pegida. BF have a small organisation but are adept at using social media to spread their message and it does resonate. Our lovely football supporting ambassadors currently fighting with Russians and the local cops in France have been chanting not just patriotically, but with the kind of racist language and EDL type forms we have seen before.

This guy it seems was linked to a far right South African expat group, and there are allegations that he obtained information on how to make weapons from a neo-Nazi group. This goes back years.

More has come out to suggest he had mental health issues as well, and the two do not seem divorced.

It is not, however, clear whether he had Jo Cox as an intended target, or if something happened and she got involved. She was holding an MP surgery at the library (which would be a regular event, but would move around the Constituency), and apparently he was a regular user of the Library.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/201 ... -mp-jo-cox

Clearly he thinks it is political, when giving his name in court he said he was "Death to traitors, freedom for Britain". Asked to clarify, he repeated it.

He will get checked for psychological problems.