Following the senseless murder of UK parliament member and Remain backer Jo Cox, the Remain forces have come out to politicize her death, as expected.
Please consider Merkel Warns Politicians Against Inflaming Hatred.
Angela Merkel on Friday warned that the killing of British MP Jo Cox should serve as a stark reminder to politicians to avoid inflammatory language.
“This is a terrible precedent,” said the German chancellor. “The overall lesson must be that we behave with respect to each other, including when we have different political beliefs . . . Otherwise radicalisation will definitely not be stopped.”
Critics of the Brexit campaign seized on the killing to attack the Brexiters. In France, Marion Van Renterghem, a reporter at Le Monde, the daily paper, tweeted: “The lovely face of Jo Cox will become the symbol of an absurd and suicidal referendum.”
Karl-Georg Wellmann, a leading MP in Ms Merkel’s CDU party, pointed at leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson. He told German radio: “When an English politician, especially a conservative politician like Boris Johnson, compares the EU with Adolf Hitler, we should not wonder when some madmen take the law into their own hands.”
Anti-EU politicians expressed concern at the possible damage done to their cause if Ms Cox’s death now rallies support for the Remain campaign that she backed.
However, Sweden and the Netherlands, two countries with recent political murders, offer contrasting lessons about the chances of a surge of support for the victim’s cause.
Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic Dutch anti-Islam politician, was killed nine days before a general election in 2002. The Pim Fortuyn List party went on to win 17 per cent of the parliamentary seats, an unprecedented triumph for a new party. While the grouping later faded, anti-Islamism has remained a potent force and the anti-immigrant PVV is today the most popular party.
In Sweden, Anna Lindh, the late Swedish foreign minister, was killed in a Stockholm department store in 2003, just three days before the country voted in a referendum on whether to join the euro. Although Ms Lindh had backed the euro, there was no pro-euro swing. The anti-euro campaign won easily and Sweden has stayed out of the common currency.
Annika Strom Melin, a columnist for the daily Dagens Nyheter, wrote: “Not just Sweden and the UK, but all countries holding polarising referendums, should by now have learnt what confused and dark forces come out when people think a nation’s honour and future are at stake.”
Polls Suspect
The rhetoric is just starting. Expect more of it. It would be tragic if this absurd killing is the thing that triggers last minute support for Remain.
Anything can happen.
- My instinct is that this incident, not history, could conceivably save Remain. Otherwise agnostic voters may vote Remain out of solidarity. Those on the fence may choose to strike back at hatred.
- It’s also possible the incident saps the energy from Remain, or voter turnout in general becomes disgusted by the whole process.
- Finally, it’s possible that Remain tries to capitalize on this, and the attempt backfires.
We really do not know. Only polls taken after this incident will be reliable now.
Nonetheless, I will keep reporting on the polls. It’s possible, as happened in Sweden and Netherlands, this senseless death will not affect the vote enough to matter.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Reminds me of how someone named Joseph exploited Horst Wessel’s death.
No impact.
“Give me control of tabulating the votes and I care not who participates”
The very first minute the attack on Jo Cox happened the Remain politicians were spreading their lies and propaganda. See here.
Imo this will totally backfire on REMAIN leaving REMAIN covered in their guilty “blood money.”
i picture multitudes of muslims lining up to stay, drowning the votes of the real Britains…
kinda like what’s happening here with Obunghole’s foreign friends of the democraptic party.
If this incident changes your mind, then you have no mind worth worrying about
Agree completely.
@watchman — If this incident changes your mind, then you have no mind worth worrying about
+1
Reichstag fire.
It would be disgusting if this murder changed minds. What does that say? If you don’t like the vote, go find some one to murder to change the direction of an election? Appalling.
+1000
Is there even any proof this guy killed her because of the vote? What’s even worse is trying to exploit something that may have never really happened (or at least for the reason you think it did).
No, Zero evidence of that at all.
Everyone should see this report.
Brexit Threatens To Topple World Government
Remain. Exit. What difference at this point does it effing make?
I suspect Remain is going to overplay this in the same fashion as the Democrat Party did with Senator Wellstone’s death a few years back.
And what did that accomplish?
No reason to feel sorry for a corrupt politician like her. Anybody that campaigned hard for “stay” is in the pocket of somebody. We’ve all gone soft.
The opinions of foreign politicians on this matter will not likely make much if any impression in the UK.
Never heard of this polling group, but perhaps the first poll to be given after the shooting:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/06/17/exclusive-poll-eu-support-falls-after-jo-cox-murder/86031038/
British support for remaining in the European Union has weakened in the wake of the murder of the pro-EU politician Jo Cox, according to an online research company Friday.
Qriously, a London-based technology start-up that gathers data and intelligence about consumers through mobile phone apps, found that backing among likely voters for Britain’s EU membership has dropped to 32% from 40% before her death.
The poll was based on 1,992 British adults surveyed on June 13-16, and then 1,002 on June 17 — the day after Cox was shot and killed in northern England. The start-up claims to have held the first such survey on the topic since the lawmaker’s slaying.
I suspect (hope?) that England won’t decide their own economic future based on whether a mental case decided to shoot a politician… so I would expect the polls / trend to be unchanged (ie leaning toward brexit).
But it is also possible the false flag liar at 10 Downing is acting too desperate, and the ridiculous doomsday threats from unelected Eurocrats aren’t helping either. Those actions by politicians, not the actions of a nutcase, might be helping brexit.
Will shooting an MP make the British ignore their Queen and kneel before unelected Eurocrats?
“…what confused and dark forces come out when people think a nation’s honour and future are at stake.”
What a load of BS!
So we should have no honor and dignity and even less consider our nations future?
And we should given no chance to vote?
I don’t want to say what I think of people like this. I would be banned.