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Related: About this forumJo Cox dead: Suspect linked to hard-right group that has campaigned against the EU
The man arrested over the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox is believed to have had long-term links with a hard-right group based in London which had been campaigning for many years for Britain to leave the European Union.
Thomas Mair was named as a supporter in an online publication of the Springbok Club, an organisation which has defended the white supremacist apartheid regime in South Africa...
The link between Mair and the Springbok Club goes back ten years when its online magazine, the Springbok Cyber Newsletter, was inquiring about the whereabouts of Thomas Mair, from Batley in Yorkshire [who] was one of the earliest subscribers and supporters of S.A. Patriot who has moved from his address in the Fieldhead Estate district of the town.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/jo-cox-dead-thomas-mair-suspect-south-africa-apartheid-a7086426.html
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)I wonder if he was emboldened by Farage's words about there being disorder if they didn't get what they wanted.
Helen Borg
(3,963 posts)Something tells me he's not that sad about what happened.
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)And the rhetoric from the likes of Gove, Johnson and Duncan Smith has done little to quash their militancy.
Denzil_DC
(7,242 posts)It may cramp his style in demagoguery in the home straight to the referendum.
As Dad Dog says above, he'd already hinted at civil unrest in the event of a Remain vote. UKIP has long-term ties to racist, sometimes violent, far right/neo-Nazi groups that it's had a great deal of trouble shedding.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)I thought all right wingers were in favor of neoliberal economics. It's like the KKK being against free trade agreements.
It's just weird and considering all the wacko stuff his right wing group believes, why would this article emphasize getting out of the EU?
Denzil_DC
(7,242 posts)The objections to the EU from the Leave side range from the entirely logical and understandable to the downright racist and illogical, such as the idea that a UK standing alone would be any less neoliberal. High-flown economics doesn't seem to figure that highly for most people.
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)In the UK, neoliberal economics are in any case mainly a function of Thatcherism, not the EU.
It's mostly a matter of xenophobic isolationism, blaming the EU for immigration, and even claiming that the EU are imposing 'political correctness' on us, combined with a degree of nostalgia for a mythical golden age. The comparable attitude in America would not be opposition to free trade agreements as such, but a cross between 'states rights' opposition to the federal government and general right-wing paranoia about the UN.
There are left-wing Eurosceptics but fewer and fewer as time goes on, due to the right-wing and racist associations with many on the Leave side, and also because of an increased realization that Brexit would not make us more independent, but would make us more dependent on agreements with non-EU leaders, many of whom are much less democratic: e.g. Putin, Modi, the Chinese government. Not to mention increased dependence on the USA - OK if it's Obama, not so OK if, godforbid, it's Trump. Personally, I moved from supporting Leave to Remain 12 years ago, as a result of Blair's collaboration with Bush and my awareness that this would have been even less restrained without the checks and balances of the EU.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)A large part of Remain's argument is that trade with the remnant of the EU would decrease, and this would hurt the British economy; the Leave leaders claim the UK would be able to do free trade deals on its own terms with the rest of the world, and this would make up for any loss with the EU.
But cutting immigration from the EU is a major motivation for Leave voters, and the politicians too, though it varies how much they emphasise that (because they know they don't want to look bigoted). The far right is almost universally 'Leave'.
The survey of 2,000 people by ORB gave the Brexit campaign a remarkable 10-point lead over the Remain camp.
But it found that when, considering how to vote, a third of people think mass immigration is a far more important factor than the effect on the economy - which has been the focus of the official Vote Leave campaign lead by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.
The alternative Out camp, Leave.EU, lead by Ukip leader Nigel Farage has focused on immigration. It has been accused of racism and stoking up fears about sex attacks and terrorism.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-new-poll-shows-one-in-three-think-immigration-is-more-important-than-the-economy-a7075351.html
Denzil_DC
(7,242 posts)And thereby hangs Leave's big con.
The likes of Migration Watch (yuk) claim immigration would be cut by 100,000 a year (by gazing into their crystal ball and predicting the outcome of future negotiations, handily ignoring the fact that membership of EFTA or whatever their suggested alternative is would mean we'd still have to allow relatively free movement between the UK and other EU countries): http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35414310
Others disagree: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/10/immigration-truth-brexit-would-not-bring-it-under-control
steve2470
(37,457 posts)Ironing Man
(164 posts)theres now a twitter picture floating about from, i think, October of last year in Dewsbury West Yorks with what looks a bit like this Thomas Mair character in a Britain First demo/whatever.
its on Far Right Watch twitter feed. bloke in the centre sans the standard BF 'uniform'. its by no stretch a dead cert, and the baseball cap doesn't help...
[link:https://twitter.com/Far_Right_Watch|
so, we know for certain that he was a subscriber to a South African, Apartheid supporting mag in (i think) the 80's/early 90's, we know he bought some books of a less than savoury nature from a neo-Nazi group in the US, and West Yorks Police have said that they have found Nazi regalia in his house...
he's been taken to charged with Murder, GBH, and possession of a Firearm and taken to Paddington Green Police Station in London - in effect, the Terrorism police station - and will appear at Westminster Magistrates to be remanded in custody.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)Asked at Westminster magistrates court on Saturday to confirm his name, Mair said: My name is death to traitors, freedom for Britain. The judge then asked the defendants lawyers to confirm that his name was Thomas Mair, which they did.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jun/18/thomas-mair-charged-with-of-mp-jo-cox
So, yes, he's a right wing terrorist.
Ironing Man
(164 posts)i'd love to have seen the facepalm his Lawyer did as he said that...
what are we thinking, 30 years in Belmarsh?
non sociopath skin
(4,972 posts)Now investigate the group he purported to represent.
The Skin
Ironing Man
(164 posts)i wouldn't be remotely surprised if the police have very deliberately not investigated BF/their surrogates in the run up to the Ref for entirely understandable reasons - but once the ref is over next thursday the plan will have always been to go at with a very heavy, very sharp stick. this however may have brought that forward.
aside from all the hate mongering, physical assualts, harrasment etc... BF have long had financial irregularities. the police may well feel that its better to go at them with a skip full of charges relating to every facet of their activities rather than a single prosecution here, another there.
we shall see - but i doubt that a glittering political or media future is on the cards for the lovely Jayda and her family...