Twenty-five years before he murdered the Labour MP Jo Cox, Thomas Mair told a far-right magazine that the 'white race' faced a 'long and very bloody struggle'. Mair, who lived on the Fieldhead estate in Birstall, West Yorkshire, was described by neighbours as reclusive and odd but harmless. However, his home was filled with far-right books and Nazi memorabilia, and he harboured a deep hatred for those he called 'the collaborators' – liberals, the left and the media.
Mair's obsession with killing a 'collaborator' appears to have begun more than 17 years before the murder, inspired by the 1999 nail bomb attacks carried out by David Copeland. Copeland, a former member of the British National Party, planted three bombs in London targeting black, Asian and gay people, killing three and injuring over 140. Mair purchased bomb-making manuals and other far-right materials from the US-based National Alliance shortly after Copeland's arrest.
Records obtained by the Southern Poverty Law Center show Mair spent over $620 (£500) on items from the National Alliance between 1999 and 2003, including manuals on constructing bombs and homemade pistols, back issues of the journal Free Speech, and a copy of Ich Kämpfe, a Nazi tract. He also subscribed to the right-wing magazine SA Patriot, to which he wrote a letter in 1991.
The seeds of Mair's hatred were nurtured during the EU referendum campaign, when Brexit campaigners made claims about immigration that Mair found validating. He came to see Cox, a passionate advocate for immigration and the Remain campaign, as a legitimate target. Mair shot and stabbed Cox to death on 16 June 2016, just hours after the UK Independence Party unveiled its 'breaking point' anti-immigration poster.
