Over-reaction to the killing of Jo Cox

The killing of Jo Cox is a huge personal tragedy.

We don’t know yet if it was a political murder or not. The suspect evidently has a history of mental problems. His neighbours say he wasn’t political, but he had a gun, and what did he look at on the library computers? Had he been radicalised?

It seems they didn’t know him well.

Or – whisper it – was there no political element at all?

He went armed, evidently to do damage. We do not know why he and another man were fighting. Jo Cox came out. As far as we know, he didn’t try to burst into her surgery. If she was his target, on the face of it he went about his foul deed very oddly.

Did he shout “Britain First” before walking away? Witnesses differ.

On this (so far flimsy) basis, some left wingers have been voicing hatred for the Brexit campaign.

The BBC has cancelled this evening’s broadcasts of Question Time and This Week. It would have no business to react that way even in normal political times, and certainly has no case to do so as we approach an important referendum. Licence payers are entitled to see political discussion programmes if they still want to; it is not for the BBC to deny them this right.

If you think this really was a political assassination, then all the more reason for defiance by continuing with democratic political discussions.

The Remain campaign has suspended campaigning for today and tomorrow.

Would the BBC and the Remain campaign have reacted like this if (say) Ken Clarke, Theresa May or Peter Bone had been killed? I suspect not. Jo Cox was a leftwinger in the prime of life with a young family, and by all accounts a very nice person. But the Establishment is over-reacting.

To be blunt, it suits the Remain side to have campaigning suspended for as long as possible, to take the wind out of Leave’s sails. This was doubtless a decision taken coolly by the Prime Minister and the Chancellor.

The Leave campaigns need to return to normal political discourse first thing on Friday morning. It is for us to choose when we rejoin them.