Nick Robins-Early - British Lawmaker’s Killing Highlights Dangers Of Far-Right Nationalism / Britain Asks if Tone of ‘Brexit’ Campaign Made Violence Inevitable
The killing
of lawmaker Jo Cox this week raises concerns about the far-right
fringes of a national debate on immigration and sovereignty in the lead-up to
Britain’s referendum on the European Union. The 41-year-old member
of Parliament was fatally shot and stabbed on Thursday on the streets of
Birstall, northern England. The former aid
worker and rising political star was a passionate advocate for
immigration. She backed Britain remaining in the EU as the June 23 vote loomed
on whether the country should exit Europe’s politico-economic union, a move
commonly known as a “Brexit.”
Thomas Mair, the
52-year-old man charged with her murder, gave his name as “death
to traitors, freedom for Britain” when he appeared in a London court on
Saturday. Prosecutors said Mair
told police he is a “political activist” and that officers found far-right
materials in his house. Mair reportedly had contacts
with far-right groups in South Africa and the U.S. in the past. His
family said he has a history of mental illness.
Witnesses heard Cox’s
killer yelling, “Britain first, Keep Britain independent, Britain always comes
first,” during the attack. ‘Britain first’ is a popular slogan among
English nationalists and also the name of an active anti-EU, anti-Islam
political organization. Britain First leader
Paul Golding denied the group had any connection to Cox’s murder in a video
statement posted to its Facebook page and website soon after the attack. “We
hope that this person who carried it out is strung up by the neck on the
nearest lamppost,” Golding said in the video.
While it is not yet
clear whether Mair had any involvement in the group or other far-right
organizations in the U.K., Cox’s killing has drawn attention to political
extremism in Britain, amid increasingly heated rhetoric in the lead-up to
Thursday’s EU referendum. Britain First was
founded in 2011 and emerged out of similar far-right British nationalist
groups, including the English Defence League and the British
National Party. The pseudo-political activist party calls
itself a “patriotic resistance” that opposes Islam, political
correctness and the EU.
Although Britain First
is on the very fringe of U.K. politics, the organization has grown a
significant social media following through far-right memes and viral
anti-immigration propaganda videos on the refugee crisis. One video shows
leader Paul Golding mockingly
questioning refugees and migrants in Calais on where they got their
mobile phones, trying to portray them as wealthy and not in need of asylum.
In an attempt to gain
more publicity, Golding ran for Mayor of London this year and received just
over 1 percent of the vote. When London elected Sadiq
Khan as its first Muslim mayor in May, Golding turned his back to the podium during the victory
speech. Britain First also
tried to exploit
the memory of British soldier Lee Rigby in promotional materials
during its campaign. Rigby was killed in 2013, after Islamic extremists attacked him near a military barracks in Woolwich,
southeast London. The soldier’s family condemned the group, stating that
“Britain First’s views are not what Lee believed in and they have absolutely no
support from his family.”
The far-right group
had become something of a punchline for U.K. news organizations, due to
its gaffes and bizarre media output. On a trip to Northern Ireland, members of
Britain First mistook
a town hall for a mosque and posed in front of it as part of their
propaganda. The U.K. Independence Party, a more mainstream anti-EU and
anti-immigration political organization, has also shunned
advances from Britain First. UKIP says the extremist group is trying
to associate itself with the party to gain support. Beyond the bluster and
rhetoric of Britain First, members have also been involved in militant anti-Muslim
activism. They’ve invaded
mosques to harass imams and conducted “Christian patrols” in Muslim-majority
neighborhoods to incite clashes as part of this strategy.
While Golding and
Britain First were quick to distance themselves from Cox’s murder, her killing
has come at a time when anti-EU, anti-immigrant sentiment and political
tensions have come to the fore in Britain. As the referendum over a potential
British exit from the EU gets closer, far-right political parties have made
controversial and divisive appeals to leave the union — many playing to
ethno-nationalist sentiment.
Nationalist parties
such as UKIP
have stirred up fears about immigration by casting refugees from
Africa and the Middle East as potential terrorists or economic chancers, and
conflating the refugees journeying through Europe, most of whom will never
reach Britain, with EU citizens’ migration. The latest immigration figures show net migration in the
U.K. was 330,000 last year, of which 184,000 were EU nationals. Some 41,500
people applied for asylum in Britain in the year leading up to March 2016, most
of them from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Eritrea.
On Thursday morning,
hours before Cox was killed, UKIP leader Nigel Farage unveiled a poster showing a long line of refugees
under the banner “Breaking Point.” Its captions blamed the EU for migration
to the U.K. “As you will see from today’s advert, the EU has failed us all,”
Farage wrote in a British newspaper on Thursday, calling it
the largest advertising campaign in the party’s history.
The image in the UKIP
poster, which Getty Images photographer Jeff Mitchell took in Slovenia
in October 2015, does show a crisis for the EU, but a very different one to
that which Farage portrays. Hungary’s nationalist government shut its border
with Croatia that month, pushing thousands of migrants and refugees to journey through Slovenia,
hoping to continue north to wealthier and more welcoming nations like Germany
and Sweden.
Mitchell’s photo
captures Slovenian police escorting them to a refugee camp, as the country
grappled with the consequences of the Hungarian backlash to the European
refugee crisis. It highlights the fall-out of countries shutting borders and
acting alone, not the opposite — as Farage suggests. “It is always
uncomfortable when an objective news photograph is used to deliver any
political message or subjective agenda, however the image in question has been
licensed legitimately,” Getty Images said in a statement to the WorldPost.
Critics of UKIP also
pointed out that their newest campaign bears a strong resemblance to Nazi propaganda. UKIP’s Farage also
suggested last month that there
could be violence if immigration isn’t controlled and citizens feel
they don’t have a political voice. He also claimed that the Labour Party backed
immigration to “rub our noses in diversity.”
Anti-Immigrant
Rhetoric Spreads
Other parties have
also played on fears of foreigners and immigration, including the
far-right British National Party, which circulated inaccurate
statements that more than 80 million Turkish people will “pour” into Europe as
a result of Merkel’s EU policies.
Even mainstream British
politicians have been accused of anti-immigration scare-mongering. The Vote
Leave campaign, led by British justice secretary and Conservative MP Michael
Gove, in March published a list of murders and rapes it said EU
citizens had committed in Britain.
In his video defending
Britain First against any connection to Cox’s attacker, Golding inadvertently
summed up the kind of rhetoric that has become common during the Brexit
campaign. “It’s the name of our
party, yes, but I’ve heard UKIP people, I’ve heard Nigel Farage, everyone say
it’s time we put Britain first. It’s the kind of language that’s been utilized
during this referendum campaign.”
British politicians
have warned of the dangers of such escalating rhetoric in the wake of Cox’s
death. “Unless we strive for
a culture of respect to replace a culture which does too little to challenge
prejudice, we will be learning nothing from what happened to Jo,” former
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote in the Guardian after Cox was killed.
Read more coverage:
- The
Life Of British Lawmaker Jo Cox, From Aid Worker To Rising Political Star
- Labour Member Of Parliament Killed In Shooting
- Jo
Cox Truly Was ‘Passionate, Compassionate and Loyal’
- HuffPost UK’s Interview With Jo Cox: All Parties Need To
Work Together To Solve The Social Care Crisis
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