Compact and unitary bipartisan reaction from British democracy
Do-it-yourself terrorism of jihadist matrix. This is the lead now officially followed by the British investigators behind the brutal killing of Sir David Amess: a long-time Tory MP stabbed to death by a 25-year-old citizen of the United Kingdom of Somali origin in Leigh-on-Sea (Essex, England). south) during a traditional open meeting with the electors of his college hosted on the premises of a Methodist church. The attack threw an entire country into bewilderment. And it shocked the community of Leigh-on-Sea, a quiet town of 22,000 inhabitants nestled north of the Thames estuary, facing the Belgian coast and no more than an hour by train from London, which in 2018 was was indicated by a survey by the Rightmove property portal as the ideal residential location on the island.
The response of British democracy was nevertheless compact and unitary, in the condemnation of the violence as in the homage to the 69-year-old parliamentarian killed: symbolized by the joint visit made today by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the leader of the Labor opposition Keir Starmer at the site of the ambush , side by side in the silent deposition of two bunches of white flowers. Behind them, the Tory Interior Minister, Priti Patel, and the Labor Speaker of the House of Commons, Lyndsay Hoyle. A gesture identical to that made in 2016 by the then conservative and number one prime ministers of Labor, David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn, when to fall under the blows of a terrorist – in that case a right-wing extremist – was in Yorkshire a deputy from the opposition, Jo Cox, murdered in the midst of the lacerating Brexit referendum campaign.
Meanwhile, the investigation into Amess’s death has passed under the control of Scotland Yard’s national counter-terrorism, in collaboration with local detectives from the Essex Police. And it was a press release from Scotland Yard that broke the reserve on the motive of the alleged killer: “The first investigations – we read – revealed a potential matrix linked to Islamic extremism” against a deputy known among other things for to have supported over the years, in the Westminster Parliament, the cause of support for Iranian opposition groups or the consolidation of friendship ties between Great Britain and Israel. For now, the details on the investigation are meager. The search is known to have extended to London, where two houses were searched as confirmed by the capital’s mayor, Sadiq Khan. While the Guardian reports that the suspect may have escaped once again, as has already happened for other ‘lone wolves’ who in recent years have repeatedly struck in London and elsewhere with edged weapons, on the radar of the control system: after being reported apparently to the prevention network of cases of “radicalization” called Prevent. Be that as it may, Minister Patel assured that the parliamentarians, like other citizens of the Kingdom, “will not be intimidated” by anyone and certainly will not interrupt the custom of meetings with voters. Even if the Amess affair, after that of Jo Cox and others, raises questions and has already led the Department of the Interior as well as the police forces to turn to the deputies for a review of the protocols on their safety in public; something that not a few elected officials refuse to submit in the name of respecting the ‘British’ traditions of accessibility to the direct relationship with citizens in the colleges. Patel herself did not fail to exalt the memory of Amess from Leigh – respected by colleagues and opponents in his 38 years of parliamentary life for “kindness, common sense”, willingness to bipartisan battles on issues such as the rights of disabled people or the protection of animals, as well as for the consistency of principles on more divisive dossiers such as support for Brexit or the defense as a Catholic observant of the doctrine of the Church of Rome on abortion and same-sex marriage – such as that of “a man of the people” . Primarily linked to the needs of the people of that chosen territory where he finally met the lonely hatred of a stabber and death.
Unlimited access to all site content
€ 1 / month for 3 months, then € 3.99 / month for 3 months
Unlock unlimited access to all content on the site
.