'Brexit' campaigns suspended after British lawmaker killed in shooting

U.K. opposition Labour Party lawmaker Jo Cox was murdered on Thursday as she met constituents in her electoral district in West Yorkshire in the north of England. Her killing, the first of a serving member of Parliament in more than two decades, shocked Britain and halted the increasingly rancorous debate ahead of next week's referendum on membership of the European Union. All campaigning was suspended after the attack, which happened just before 1 p.m. local time. “Jo was attacked by a man who inflicted serious and, sadly, ultimately fatal injuries,” West Yorkshire Police's temporary chief constable, Dee Collins, said in a televised news conference in Wakefield. The Press Association, the U.K.'s national newswire, reported that Ms. Cox was shot twice. Eyewitnesses speaking to the BBC described her attacker as having a homemade gun. Ms. Collins said Ms. Cox was pronounced dead at 1:48 p.m. by a doctor who was working with paramedics. She said police had arrested a 52-year-old man and weren't looking for anyone else. They recovered a number of weapons including a firearm, she said. “We've lost a great star,” Prime Minister David Cameron said in a televised statement. “Jo was a great campaigning MP with huge compassion and a big heart. My thoughts are with her husband Brendan and her two young children.” Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the whole party is “in shock” and paid tribute. “Jo had a lifelong record of public service and a deep commitment to humanity,” he said in a statement. “Jo died doing her public duty at the heart of our democracy, listening to and representing the people she was elected to serve.” The Guardian newspaper reported an eyewitness as saying Ms. Cox's attacker had shouted “Britain First.” It said local resident Graeme Howard ran to the scene when he heard the first shot. “There was loads of screaming and shouting and the police officers showed up,” he was cited as saying. “He was shouting 'Britain First' when he was doing it and being arrested. He was pinned down by two police officers and she was taken away in an ambulance.” Britain First is the name of a group that campaigns against immigration and Britain's membership of the EU. A video on the group's website showed activists learning combat techniques at a “training camp” in the Snowdonia mountains of North Wales. In a statement on the site, the group said it “obviously is NOT involved and would never encourage behavior of this sort.” PRO-EU Ms. Collins said police were “not in a position to discuss any motive.” Mark Burns Williamson, the police and crime commissioner for West Yorkshire, sought to reassure minority ethnic groups in the area. “I want to try to reassure communities that our information is that this is a localized incident, albeit one that has a much wider impact,” he said. Ms. Cox, 41, was ardently pro-EU and helped launch the campaign group Britain In Europe. She worked for the aid agency Oxfam and then with other groups including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She was nominated as a young global leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009. Before her death was announced, her husband Brendan posted a picture on Twitter of her standing by the River Thames, where she lived with him on a houseboat. “All of us are united in deep sadness at the loss of one of our brightest and most popular Westminster colleagues,” Home Secretary Theresa May said in a televised statement. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney canceled a planned speech in London's financial district Thursday evening, though he'll still make shortened remarks “reflecting on today's events” at the high-profile Mansion House dinner. Guns are very tightly controlled in the U.K., and shootings are rare. Since the end of the terrorism campaigns in Northern Ireland, there have been few attacks on lawmakers. In 2010, Labour's Stephen Timms was stabbed in the stomach by a constituent who had been radicalized by watching Islamic preachers online. He made a full recovery. The last member of Parliament to be killed was Ian Gow, who was murdered by an Irish Republican Army bomb at his home in Sussex in 1990.