I've read a lot about how those who voted BREXIT should take a look at the murder of Jo Cox and feel some sense of responsibility.
I wrote, at the time of the murder, that this kind of irresponsible dot-connecting is no better than the Daily Mail headlines that are so gleefully pasted across our liberal timelines as the fascist propaganda they are.
This was an act of terrorism by an individual, many years in the making, and even if the referendum was the spark that finally lit the fuse, that's no reason to make people who may have voted to leave the EU out to be somehow complicit in his vile psychosis.
I know Remainers feel personally hurt by this vote but pointing at every piece of racist scum, every blind bigot and cowardly moron that uses it as a call to arms, and then saying to millions of people, "See! Now look what you've done! Happy now?!!!" is beyond wrong, it's irresponsible.
Why? Because it does what it accuses others of doing. It gives these pricks a cause to hide behind. It almost legitimizes them. It lets them act how they have wanted to for many years before BREXIT was ever an over-used word, safe in the knowledge that others will vicariously share their guilt. It also dilutes the horror of this attack and, as such, draws focus away from the personal, tragic, violent events of Jo's murder. She wasn't the collateral damage of a war on liberalism or the inevitable victim of a referendum vote. She was the individual, flesh and blood, human victim of a viscous and pre-meditated attack by a monster who should never be allowed to shelter in the crater of rubble, kicked up by the meteoric impact of BREXIT.
At some point, I believe this maniac would have struck, regardless of Brexit, and we could still be mourning the loss of an innocent life, or lives. It may have tipped this murdering coward over the edge but it didn't take him there. He's been looking for a sign all his adult life and, eventually, any sign will do if you're deranged enough. And then who do we blame?
What if, in another dimension, this attack had happened because we had just elected our first black or Muslim prime minister? It's the kind of thing just as likely to trigger an attack on 'liberalism'. Or maybe we suddenly decide to allow millions of refugees to become UK citizens? Also just as likely to send mad Nazis into a murderous frenzy. Then what? Do 'acceptable', 'progressive' good things that cause attacks still get blamed?
People who voted BREXIT had nothing to do with Jo Cox's death. The blame, ALL the blame, lies at the feet of the individual now serving time for it.