BIRSTALL, England—Campaigning in Britain’s European Union membership referendum remained suspended Friday as the country absorbed the daylight slaying of lawmaker Jo Cox with shock, and worry that the political fury unleashed by the EU campaign was somehow connected to the killing.
A U.S. civil rights group said the man suspected of the gun and knife attack had links to an American white supremacist organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said it has records showing Thomas Mair was a supporter of the National Alliance. The center said Mair purchased a manual from the group in 1999 that included instructions on how to build a pistol.
On its website, the center published copies of receipts showing that a Thomas Mair of West Yorkshire — the county where Cox and her suspected killer both lived — bought publications including “Chemistry of Powder and Explosives” and “Improvised Munitions Handbook.”
The National Alliance was founded by William Pierce, whose book “The Turner Diaries” has been called a grisly blueprint for a bloody race war. Timothy McVeigh based the 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which killed 168 people, on a truck-bombing described in the book.
