Man Who Stabbed Labour MP Jo Cox Sentenced to Life in Prison

British MP Jo Cox was shot dead. (Photo: AP)

A loner obsessed with Nazis and extreme right-wing ideology was sentenced on Wednesday to spend the rest of his life in prison for murdering lawmaker Jo Cox in a frenzied street attack that stunned Britain a week before the European Union referendum.

Armed with a sawn-off rifle and a dagger, Thomas Mair, 53, shot Cox three times and repeatedly stabbed the 41-year-old mother of two young children in her northern English electoral district as she arrived for a meeting with local residents.

During the 16 June attack, he shouted "Britain first" and "Keep Britain independent", his trial heard. When arrested he told officers he was a political activist and his only words in court were when he gave his name as "death to traitors, freedom for Britain".

Cox's murder horrified Britain, elicited condolences from leaders around the world and led to the suspension for several days of campaigning ahead of an EU vote that had become increasingly ugly and replete with personal recriminations.

Mair, slight of build and balding with a grey goatee beard, refused to speak to police, enter a plea or offer any defence at the London Old Bailey trial, which was treated as a terrorism case.

He asked to make a statement only after the jury unanimously returned a guilty verdict, but Judge Alan Wilkie refused.

You are no patriot. It is clear...that your inspiration is not love of country or your fellow citizens, it is an admiration for Nazism and similar anti-democratic, white supremacist creeds.

Alan Wilke

During the eight-day trial, Mair remained silent and gave no explanation as to why he attacked Cox, a former humanitarian aid worker who campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU.

Mair, who had never come to police attention before, was also convicted of grievous bodily harm for stabbing a 77-year-old man who tried to save Cox during the assault outside Birstall library in the region of West Yorkshire.

She had only been in parliament for little more than a year, after easily winning the seat for the opposition Labour party in the area where she grew up.

(With inputs from Reuters)