Britain First denies link to Jo Cox murder and advocates vigilante ‘justice’ for the culprit

Paul Golding, leader of the extreme rightwing Britain First, made a statement following the attack on Jo Cox (before her death had been reported), in which he said*:

The media, with an axe to grind, with a history of dishonest practice like the [News International] phone hacking scandal, they are trying to somehow incriminate a perfectly legal political party in this act of criminality. We had nothin’ to do with it. I was in the office stuffin’ envelopes this afternoon when this news broke. And we certainly don’t condone it. We hope that this person who carried it out is strung up by the neck on the nearest lamppost. That’s the way we view justice.

So, I urge the media: stop telling lies. Stop twisting things. Stick to the facts. The facts are that this was a terrible criminal act on an MP — a representative of the people. No one else — no organization — was behind this. No organization was incriminated. That’s the fact of the situation. So I urge the media to stick to facts.

Later, The Guardian reported:

Graeme Howard, 38, who lives in nearby Bond Street, said the attacker shouted “Britain first”, adding: “I heard the shot and I ran outside and saw some ladies from the cafe running out with towels. There was loads of screaming and shouting and the police officers showed up. He was shouting ‘Britain first’ when he was doing it and being arrested.”

Another witness, Clarke Rothwell, also told the BBC that Cox’s attacker shouted “Britain first”.

* Anyone who follows the link above to watch Golding make his statement and who is unfamiliar with the details of the London Mayoral election to which he refers and in which he was one of the candidates, might be interested to note that he is lying when he claims he received “over 100,000” votes. In fact he got 31,372 votes, which amounts to 1.2% of votes cast.

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