Labour MP Jo Cox Has Died After Man Shouting "Britain First!" Shoots and Stabs Her

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Jo Cox, 41

UPDATE (11:56 AM CST): This is first and foremost a horrible tragedy for Ms. Cox and her family. But it is now being reported that the "Britain First!" claim may have been a hoax, started or abetted by a Labour colleague. 

A few seconds ago it was reported that Jo Cox lost her fight for life in the hospital.

It hasn't been confirmed that the attacker shouted "Britain First!" but there is no reason to doubt it. The attacker has now been identified as "Tommy Mair, 52," who neighbors described as a "loner."

Apparently, Ms. Cox "passionately defended immigration." 

From the Mirror:

An eyewitness told the Huddersfield Examiner the man was shouting what sounded like "Britain First, Britain First." 

One man who saw the incident unfolding revealed the man "shot her once, then shot her again – and shot her once more". 

Cafe owner Clarke Rothwell, who saw the shooting, told BBC News: “I could hear a loud popping noise which sounded more like a balloon bursting. 

"When I looked round there was a man stood there in his fifties, with a white baseball cap on and grey jacket with a gun, an old-fashioned looking gun in his hands. 

"He shot this lady once, then he shot her again and she fell to the floor. Went over, shot her once more in the face area, somebody tried grabbing, wrestling with him, then he was wielding a knife, a hunting knife. 

"He just started lunging at her with a knife, half a dozen times. 

"People were screaming and running from the area, people tried running towards him and as you were running towards him he was lunging with the knife at everybody. 

A gentleman with a bald head in his 50s got very close and he lunged forward and stabbed him straight in the stomach, and tried to reload his gun to shoot people nearby again but people were sort of trying to surround him. 

"Obviously with him having a gun and a knife you couldn’t get too close, he then found an exit point and he just ran down the one-way street and disappeared off.

The man was tackled by police a few minutes later. Read the rest of this article here, although ongoing updates are streaming in from British media.

Police, on top of the attacker