Brown girl

The killer shouted ‘Britain First’ before firing his gun. Britain First is the name of a nationalist group, and a right-wing sentiment that opposes immigration and supports racism. It has fascist overtones.

A few powerful individuals control the right wing media. Rupert Murdoch is one of them. The Barclay Brothers are two more. They promote conservative policy because it creates an environment they can exploit to make more money and gain more power.

They don’t do this by voting. They do it by printing misleading stories - right-wing propaganda - day after day, on the front pages of their tabloid newspapers, along with soft pornography on page 3 and inflammatory stories everywhere else that ensure the papers sell extremely well. The Sun is the most popular UK paper, and it’s one of the worst offenders.

They circumvent democracy to influence politics, with the end goal of maintaining their (incredibly wealthy) way of life. In doing so they breed a very insidious form of anger and resentment in their readership. Despite protest, they have irresponsibly allowed this right-leaning anger to grow and grow, to the point where we now have openly racist marches in our streets, and we’re holding a public vote on whether we leave the EU, undoing half a century of international cooperation.

Jo Cox opposed leaving the EU. She was a good MP, who supported helping Syrian refugees and stood against this kind of baseless hate. Today she was murdered for her beliefs. The last time this happened was in 1991, and it’s only going to get worse unless the UK tackles this hate head-on, with a strong understanding of what it is and where it comes from.

me: things can only get better from here

things: *get worse*

British Labour MP Jo Cox has died after being shot and stabbed

Cox was one of the more progressive MPs of the U.K.’s left-wing Labour Party. Before becoming a politician, she was an Oxfam policy analyst and advisor to Sarah Brown, the wife of then-Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

She fiercely advocated for the British government’s acceptance of 3,000 Syrian child refugees.

She’d also been a vocal critic of the ruling Conservative Party’s efforts to reduce funding of and dismantle the National Health Service

Cox appeared in Parliament on June 8 to express her outrage at the subsequent reduction in the quality of healthcare her constituency has suffered.