REUTERS
(REUTERS) A British member of Parliament was shot dead in the street in northern England on Thursday, causing deep shock across Britain and the suspension of campaigning for next week’s referendum on the country’s EU membership.
Jo Cox, 41, a lawmaker for the opposition Labor Party and vocal supporter of Britain remaining in the European Union, was attacked as she prepared to hold a meeting with constituents in Birstall near Leeds.
Media reports said she had been shot and stabbed.
West Yorkshire Police said a 52-year-old man was arrested by officers nearby and weapons including a firearm recovered. The motive for the attack was not immediately known.
“The whole of the Labor Party and Labor family – and indeed the whole country – will be in shock at the horrific murder of Jo Cox today,” Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn said in a statement.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the killing of Cox, who was married with two children and had worked on U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign, was a tragedy.
“We have lost a great star,” the Conservative prime minister said in a statement. “She was a great campaigning MP with huge compassion, with a big heart. It is dreadful, dreadful news.”
British lawmakers are not in parliament ahead of the June 23 referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU.
The rival referendum campaign groups said they were suspending activities for the day and Cameron said he would pull out of a planned rally in Gibraltar, the British territory on the southern coast of Spain.
It was not immediately clear what the impact would be on the referendum.
“It’s fairly clear no one is quite sure what has happened,” said John Curtice, professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde. “Until it’s clear who was responsible and what their motivation was or it might have been, all it does is stop the campaign when the ‘Remain’ side probably would not want it to be stopped.”
Eyewitnesses reported the attacker was heard to shout “Britain First” during the incident in which Mrs Cox was ‘shot three times’ and ‘repeatedly stabbed with a foot-long knife’.
The pro-EU Remain campaign has fallen behind the Leave camp in pre-referendum polls.
The last British lawmaker to have been killed in an attack was Ian Gow, who died after a bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) exploded under his car at his home in southern England in 1990.