Jo Cox and the Politics of Hate

Jo Cox, Brexit and the Politics of Hate

Daniel Trilling is the author of “Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right.” He is at work on a book about refugees in Europe.

LONDON — Jo Cox, a Labour member of Britain’s Parliament, was killed on Thursday in the northern English area she represented by a man wielding a knife and a gun. Initial reports suggested that the suspect, Thomas Mair, was a “loner” with “a history of mental illness.” But as more details have emerged, it is becoming clear that he had a commitment to white supremacist and neo-Nazi politics. According to some witnesses, he shouted either “Britain first” or “put Britain first” as he stabbed and shot Ms. Cox, who was a vocal defender of immigration and diversity.

The details remain scarce and the investigation is still underway, but at the front of many people’s minds will be the words, “Britain first.”

That is the name of a racist, far-right political group, founded by former members of the British National Party, or B.N.P., that targets Muslims in publicity stunts, which it records and posts to social media. Its members have filmed themselves “invading” London’s largest mosque and have threatened “direct action” against elected Muslim officials, including Sadiq Khan, who was recently elected mayor of London. Earlier this week, photographs emerged of a Britain First “activist training camp” in the Welsh mountains, where members were given courses in “knife defense.”

Britain First has denied any association with Mr. Mair, and there is no evidence that he was a member. But in a way, that is beside the point. The main threat of far-right attacks in recent years has come from men acting alone or in small groups. They may sympathize with fascist ideology, or they may have passed through the ranks of a far-right party at some point, but they are not acting on orders.

An attack like this, or a plot for one, is uncovered every few years — rare, but more common than many Britons would like to admit. In June 2015, a member of the neo-Nazi group National Action was convicted of the attempted murder of a South Asian man at a supermarket in Wales. In 2007, a former B.N.P. candidate was jailed for stockpiling explosives in anticipation of a coming “civil war” caused by immigration. In 1999, David Copeland, a neo-Nazi lone wolf, set off three nail bombs in London, targeting the black, gay and South Asian communities, killing three people and injuring more than 100.

These people may act independently, but their behavior and ideas are not shaped in a void. Far more people move through the periphery of far-right politics than formally join a party or organization. The details that have emerged about Mr. Mair’s life place him in this periphery: The Southern Poverty Law Center has reported that he was a longtime customer of Vanguard Books, the publishing arm of the National Alliance, an American neo-Nazi group. The police have reportedly found Nazi regalia and far-right literature at his house.

Social media has extended the far right’s reach. Sources tell me that Britain First has only a few hundred members. But its Facebook page has more than 1.4 million likes and churns out nationalist, Islamophobic and anti-immigration memes. “Saying UK borders are secure, open to 500 million people,” declares one meme, which displays a photo of the European Union’s flag, “is like saying my home is more secure with the doors and windows left open.” Another shows Muslims praying in the street in London and asks: “Is this what our war heroes died for?” Many of these are widely shared — and they often echo the coverage of immigration and ethnic minorities found in much of the British press.

This points to an uncomfortable truth: Far-right politics cannot be as easily cordoned off from the mainstream as people would like to believe. Fascists attach themselves to popular causes and drag the debate in their direction. Populists and parties of the center take note and then try to appeal to voters susceptible to the far right’s messages by taking xenophobic positions of their own.

People in Britain have been doubly shocked by Ms. Cox’s killing because of its timing. The debate over our country’s June 23 referendum on European Union membership has reached fever pitch and exposed new levels of xenophobia and hatred. The discussion over Brexit — among politicians and in the media — has often ignored wider questions about representation and democracy and instead focused on the issue of border security, frequently expressed in the most exclusionary, nationalist terms.

Both sides are complicit in this to some degree. Whichever way the vote goes on June 23, politicians have said they will tighten immigration policy. But the faction of the pro-Brexit camp led by Nigel Farage and his nationalist UK Independence Party, or UKIP, has done its best to whip up fears. UKIP has sought to distance itself from fascist parties like the B.N.P. But its rhetoric carefully manipulates people’s fears of immigration, while the party poses as the defender of ordinary people abandoned by an out-of-touch elite.

As the referendum approaches, their campaigning has gotten uglier. This week, Mr. Farage unveiled a campaign poster on which the words “BREAKING POINT” were written next to a photo of refugees crossing the Slovenian countryside last August. “If people feel they’ve lost control completely — and we have lost control of our borders completely, as members of the European Union — if people feel that voting doesn’t change anything, then violence is the next step,” Mr. Farage said in an interview with the BBC last month. “I find it difficult to contemplate it happening here, but nothing’s impossible.” This is a typical demagogue’s tactic, a statement so ambiguous it can be read as both a warning and an encouragement.

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The motive of Ms. Cox’s killer will become clearer in the weeks to come. But it shouldn’t take the death of a politician to alert us to the dangers of the politics of hate.

In her maiden speech to Parliament, delivered just last year, Ms. Cox argued that immigration had “deeply enhanced” the community she had been elected to represent. “While we celebrate our diversity,” she said, “what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.” The best response to her death is to resist those voices, wherever they emerge, that tell us if only we got rid of the aliens and traitors, our societies would be great again.

Daniel Trilling is the author of “Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right.” He is at work on a book about refugees in Europe.