The savage slaying of Jo Cox, by all accounts a really great emerging politician, at the hands of a deranged loner came at a time when the Brexit referendum campaign was about to reach its climactic last weekend. And the awfulness of her death led to a temporary cessation of hostilities in that campaign.
Terrible though it is to admit it, in two years’ time her tragedy will be felt most by her devastated family and friends and largely forgotten in the fickle public consciousness; but the vote next Thursday will not have been forgotten. The referendum’s national and international reverberations and consequences will be very much to the forefront of public discourse for many years, no matter which way the vote goes.
Likewise, the effect of Jo Cox’s killing on the result, if any, is hard to foretell. It could have the same effect on the Brexit referendum as the Jihadist bombing at the Atocha railway station had on the Spanish General Election in 2004. An opportunist attempt by the outgoing Spanish government of Jose Maria Aznar to blame the bombing on ETA badly misfired and seriously damaged their standing in the eyes of the voters, losing them the election.
Can Jo’s killer’s actions be sensibly linked with the Brexit referendum or the Leave campaign? Even if there is no sensible connection between his deranged actions and the Leave campaign, is there nevertheless some subliminal linkage in the minds of voters that would damage or derail the apparent lead which Leave has opened up in the opinion polls. Will the grief and shock experienced by the public somehow translate into stronger support for the Remain campaign?
Coming as it did at a critical moment in a critical process, her murder could well have such an unspoken effect on public opinion.
But any attempt by any of the protagonists in the referendum campaign to reference her killing in a partisan, exploitative way could backfire dramatically, as the Partido Popular learned in 2004.
So common decency and emotional and political intelligence will probably converge to result in no explicit connection being publicly drawn between the two events by either side.
But attitudes form and change on the basis of subliminal perception. And it may well be that Jo Cox’s death at the hands of a deranged loner may provide its own crucial political dynamic. Who can say?
I remain of the view that Ireland’s interests overwhelmingly favour Britain remaining in the EU. I base that judgment on the economic links between this country and the UK, on the links between the two parts of Ireland, and on the fact that Britain is our most valuable ally on a host of EU issues – an ally we cannot replace and cannot afford to lose.
I am opposed to the attempts by EU federalists to create a European super-state. And I consider that their power is held in check in part by the UK presence in the EU. In holding this view, I am joined by the great majority of voters in the Republic and Northern Ireland if opinion polls are to be believed.
And while I am confident that Ireland can survive Brexit, it would come at a cost which we should not want to bear. Unintended collateral advantages of Brexit such as commercial displacement from London to Dublin cannot in my view compensate us for the more obvious and immediate downside in economic and political terms.
It is premature to draw any conclusion about where responsibility lies for the fact that the UK is teetering this weekend on the brink of leaving the EU – still less for the result of the referendum.
Some may blame Cameron’s Tories for promising a referendum to forestall defeat at the hands of UKIP. Others may blame Corbyn’s Labour for its flaccid impotence on the EU. Others may share Donald Tusk’s view that the Brussels elite’ unrealistic ambition has alienated the peoples of Europe. Others may blame the relentless and seemingly insatiable hunger of plutocrats to advance their global interests at the expense of national sovereignty and accountability. Still others will see Angela Merkel’s mass migration invitation on behalf of all EU member states as crassly arrogant and misconceived.
Some will say it is attributable to all of those factors among others.
There will be time to start pondering those issues when the polls close on Thursday evening and when the exit polls are published.
At least the referendum process is democratic.
And democracy, for all its difficulties, is in need of being cherished. Its practitioners may get bad press from time to time. But like Theodore Roosevelt’s “man in the arena”, we must value those who participate in the democratic process more than their safer, passive critics.
And we must always be thankful for good people like Jo Cox.