A white supremacist has been told he will serve the whole of his life in jail for murdering MP Jo Cox.

Thomas Mair attacked the 41-year-old mother-of-two as she arrived for her weekly surgery at Birstall Library, shooting and stabbing her after shouting "Britain first".

Mair, who had a stash of neo-Nazi material at his home in the West Yorkshire town, had pleaded his innocence but failed to offer any evidence in his defence.

The jury at the Old Bailey took just 90 minutes to find Mair guilty after a prosecutor described how, having failed in a first attempt to kill her, he came back to shoot and stab the Labour MP for Batley and Spen in front of her shocked constituents.

Image: Thomas Mair has been given a whole life sentence for murdering MP Jo Cox

She was shot at three times and stabbed a total of 15 times a week before the EU referendum, in which she had been campaigning for the UK to remain.


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After the verdict, 53-year-old Mair asked the judge through his lawyer if he could address the court, but was refused permission.

The judge Mr Justice Wilkie told Mair: "By your actions you have betrayed the quintessence of our country, its reliance on Parliamentary democracy.

"There is no doubt that this murder was done to advance the cause of violent white nationalism.

"It was a vicious, ruthless and determined attack. You returned to inflict further injuries on Jo when it seemed she might survive."

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Mrs Cox's sister, Kim Leadbeater, said her killer had committed an "act of extreme cowardice" and the MP's death had had a "ripple effect", comments echoed by Mrs Cox's husband Brendan who said her death would result in a wall of tolerance against those who sought to divide.

Mair was also found guilty of possession of a firearm with intent, the grievous bodily harm of Bernard Carter-Kenny and possession of an offensive weapon, namely a dagger.

Prosecutor Richard Whittam QC had praised the courage of Mrs Cox and those who tried to intervene when they saw her being attacked.

As she lay mortally wounded in the street, the MP tried to protect her aides by urging them to abandon her and escape from Mair.

Her constituency caseworker Sandra Major told jurors during the trial: "He was making motions towards us with the knife and Jo was lying in the road and she shouted out 'get away, get away you two. Let him hurt me. Don't let him hurt you'."

Passer-by Mr Carter-Kenny, 78, was stabbed as he tried to stop Mair by jumping on him from behind.

When he was swiftly tracked down by police a mile away, Mair's holdall contained the blood-splattered murder weapons including a reproduction Fairbairn-Sykes "fighting dagger", designed during World War Two for British special forces.

After his arrest, police uncovered a hoard of neo-Nazi literature at his council house and a golden Third Reich eagle ornament with a swastika emblazoned on the front.

Corbyn on Jo Cox's murder: We are stronger together

Detectives investigating his use of library computers also exposed Mair's interest in far-right, anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi politics in Britain and abroad.

Sue Hemming, head of special crime and counter-terrorism at the Crown Prosecution Service, said: "Mair has offered no explanation for his actions but the prosecution was able to demonstrate that, motivated by hate, his pre-meditated crimes were nothing less than acts of terrorism designed to advance his twisted ideology."

Jo Cox was the first British female MP ever to be murdered and the first MP to be killed in office since 1990.

She was barely a year into her dream job when she died, yet had marked herself out as an MP with one of the brightest futures among the 2015 House of Commons intake.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described the murder as "an attack on democracy" which "has robbed the world of an ambassador of kindness and compassion".

John McDonnell describes the killing of Jo Cox as an "attack on democracy itself" https://t.co/9vlgK6iVJD — Sky News (@SkyNews) November 23, 2016

Home Secretary Amber Rudd said: "The shocking and senseless murder of Jo was an attack on all of us and the values we share of democracy and tolerance.

"As Home Secretary I am determined that we challenge extremism in all its forms including the evil of far-right extremism and the terrible damage it can cause to individuals, families and communities."