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Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox has been shot and injured in Birstall near Leeds, an eyewitness has said. Ms Cox was elected as a Labour MP at the general election in 2015 and has two children. An eyewitness said the 41-year-old was left lying bleeding on the pavement after the incident. The attack took place near the town's library where she held advice surgeries.

British MPs on Tuesday debated their country's funding of radical anti-Israel NGOs, with several legislators questioning why the government's aid agency is spending so much on extremist organizations which undermine Israeli democracy. The debate on foreign aid at the UK House of Commons was prompted by a petition which garnered nearly a quarter of a million signatures - well over the 150,000 needed to force a nonbinding parliamentary discussion on the issue. That petition calls for the UK government to end its policy of spending a fixed 0.7% of national income on overseas aid, and was launched after an expose...

Update: 52-year-old man arrested after Labour MP Jo Cox was shot in street outside her constituency surgery has been named as Tommy Mair. A brief public data history search reveals that Mair had psychological problems: Thomas Mair, 46, started volunteering at the park after learning about the opportunity through the Mirfield-based Pathways Day Centre for adults with mental health problems. He said: "I can honestly say it has done me more good than all the psychotherapy and medication in the world. "Many people who suffer from mental illness are socially isolated and disconnected from society, feelings of worthlessness are also...

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte today (13 June) admitted a referendum called by euroskeptic groups on whether to back closer ties between Ukraine and the EU had been “disastrous” after voters soundly rejected the pact. “I’m totally against referenda, and I’m totally, totally, totally against referenda on multilateral agreements, because it makes no sense as we have seen with the Dutch referendum,” Rutte told a conference of European MPs. “The referendum led to disastrous results,” he added. …

... "The fact is that in Spain and elsewhere in Europe, voters have come to associate the centre-left with many of the (unpopular) policies traditionally championed by the right: austerity, deregulation, liberalisation, free trade." ...

Feminism meets Islamism...

COMEDIAN John Cleese has publicly backed the Brexit campaign as he made his views on the European Union clear in series of tweets last night. The Fawlty Towers and Monty Python star also suggested killing European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker would be the best way to reform the European bloc. A prominent Liberal Democrat supporter, Cleese added it was a "sad" situation and appeared to address his message to party grandee Lord Ashdown, who is campaigning for Remain. He tweeted: "If I thought there was any chance of major reform in the EU, I'd vote to stay in. But...

The yield on the 10-year benchmark German bund fell into negative territory for the first time ever on Tuesday morning, amid global growth concerns and jitters over the U.K.'s upcoming referendum on its European Union membership. At around 8.30 a.m. London time, the yield hit zero and briefly fell into negative territory as investors continued to flock to safe-haven assets. Bond prices and yields move in opposite directions and a negative yield implies that investors are effectively paying the German government for the privilege of parking their cash. By the end of the European trading day, the yield was still...

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an impassioned call Monday for Labour Party supporters to vote to stay in the European Union, amid nervousness in the “remain” camp that it is losing momentum ahead of next week’s referendum. Brown, who governed from 2007 to 2010, said Britain should “lead in Europe” and not leave it. Polls suggest the June 23 vote on whether to leave the 28-nation bloc could go either way. The “remain” side has stressed the economic uncertainty that would be triggered by quitting, while the “leave” campaign has focused on unease about the large scale of...

Why is America so alarmed by Brexit? Lest the reader be in doubt, remind yourself of this. Never before has a sitting US president visited a fellow democracy in a bid to sway an election. Nor, until now, have 13 former US secretaries of state and defence risked addressing a letter to a foreign electorate with the same motive. Ditto eight former Treasury secretaries and five former supreme commanders of NATO. Not only has the US establishment broken its non-interference rule over Brexit, it is stamping on its smithereens. If we did not know better, it might seem the UK...

Britain’s influence in the European Union will be stronger if it votes to remain in the bloc in a June 23 referendum, Prime Minister David Cameron said on Sunday with the latest polls showing Britons almost evenly split over whether to stay or go. One poll published late on Saturday gave a two-point lead to supporters of “Remain” and the other showed those in favor of Brexit were one point ahead. In an interview on BBC television, Cameron — whose “In” campaign has been branded as scaremongering by pro-Brexit supporters for warning of the risks of quitting the 28-nation EU...

The headlines go from bad to worse for the UK and EU establishment as yet another new poll this weekend, by Opinium, shows "Brexit" leading by a remarkable 19 points (52% chose to leave the EU against 33% choosing to keep the status quo). This result comes after 2 polls Friday night showing a 10-point lead for "leave" which sparked anxiety across markets. This surge in "leave" probability comes despite an additional 1.5 million voters having registered this week (which many expected to increase "remain" support). Further anger towards EU was exposed when former cabinet minister Iain Duncan Smith warned...

The campaign for Britain to leave the European Union took a 10 percentage-point lead in a poll published late Friday, less than two weeks before the country votes in a referendum. The pound dropped. The survey of 2,000 people by ORB for the Independent newspaper found 55 percent in favor of a so-called Brexit, up 4 points since a previous poll in April, with 45 percent for "Remain," down 4 points. It's the biggest "Leave" lead recorded by ORB in polls for the newspaper. The pound was 1.4 percent lower at $1.4256 at 7:24 p.m. in London. It's the latest...

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A Somali Muslim has been found guilty of trying to behead a man in London. The attempted murder took place in December last year. Muhiddin Mire -- a 30 year old Brit from Somalia -- attacked a 56-year-old musician Lyle Zimmerman after he walked out of the metro. The incident was filmed on security camera's and a mobile phone from another traveler who continued filming the incident even after Mire swung his blade at him. [VIDEO] While attacking Zimmerman, Mire shouted "this is for Syria," after which he tried to cut off his victim's head. He only failed in this...

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble warned Friday that if Britain voted to leave the European Union, it wouldn’t have access to the single market like non-members Norway and Switzerland do. “That won’t work,” the veteran minister told Germany’s Der Spiegel weekly, which on Saturday plans to publish a German-English edition at home and in Britain with “Please don’t go!” on the cover. “That would require the country to follow the rules of a club which right now it wants to leave.” […] Schäuble warned that a Brexit could spark contagion in the EU, according to excerpts of the interview due...

The work stoppages have extended to refuse collections. Police removed blockades outside rubbish collection depots around Paris, but workers inside subsequently walked off the job. As rubbish piled up on the streets of several cities one Parisian restaurant owner said: “Customers can smell this rubbish, so they avoid the place. Can you imagine drinking coffee around this stink? They just walk away.” A woman driver said she saw a plague of “huge rats.”

HE has been shunned from the official Leave campaign but Nigel Farage may well have given Brexit a boost last night ahead of the EU referendum. Prime Minister David Cameron and Nigel Farage each gave impassioned pleas to the nation during the ITV debate as the clock counted down towards the deadline for voter registration. And according to one poll, the Ukip leader was a clear winner. The Times Red Box reactions registered hundreds the reactions of 2,500 people as Cameron and Farage were each given 30 minutes to talk and answer audience questions. An automatically selected sample of 2,500...

A few weeks ago David Cameron made contemptible warnings over Brexit and its implications for UK security. He even went so far as to suggest the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi “might be happy” if the country votes to Leave the EU. It is rather telling that since this intervention the PM has chosen to focus on prophesising economic collapse and hardship rather than discussing this vital issue of Britain’s national security. It is not surprising – considering the recent interventions and revelations concerning how the UK’s membership of the EU impacts on our security. A report by the...

JP Morgan may cut up to 4,000 UK jobs if there is a vote to leave the European Union, its chief executive has warned. Jamie Dimon said that Brexit would "be a terrible deal" for the UK economy.