Leaders from across Britain’s political spectrum come together to pay their respects to a long-serving legislator who was stabbed to death.<\/b>
\nLEIGH-ON-SEA, England \u2014 David Amess was a man of the people, a hard-working British lawmaker who had no grand political ambitions beyond serving those who had elected him for nigh-on 40 years. His shocking death at the hands of a knife-wielding man at a church where he was meeting voters has reopened questions about the security needs of Britain\u2019s members of Parliament as they go about their daily work. Police, who have said it was a terrorist-related attack, continued Saturday to question a 25-year-old British man. For the second time in five years, Britain\u2019s political leaders put their differences aside to gather Saturday morning at the scene of a fallen colleague. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labour Party, stood side-by-side and laid flowers as they paid tribute to the long-serving lawmaker, who was stabbed to death less than 24 hours earlier. The slaying of the 69-year-old Conservative lawmaker at a regular meeting with local voters has caused shock and anxiety across Britain\u2019s political spectrum, not least because it is reminiscent of the 2016 murder of Labour lawmaker Jo Cox by a far-right extremist in her own small-town constituency. \u201cHe was killed doing a job that he loves, serving his own constituents as an elected democratic member and, of course, acts of this are absolutely wrong, and we cannot let that get in the way of our functioning democracy,\u201d British Home Secretary Priti Patel said after paying her respects to Amess at the church where he died. Patel said she has convened meetings with the speaker of the House of Commons, police and U.K. security services to ensure \u201call measures are being put in place for the security of MPs so that they can carry on with their duties as elected democratic members.\u201d Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative lawmaker who gave first aid to a police officer stabbed at the gates of Parliament in 2017, said face-to-face meetings with voters should be temporarily halted, as they were during the recent coronavirus lockdowns, and replaced with online interactions. Amess suffered multiple stab wounds in the attack during his constituency meeting in the church in Leigh-on-Sea, a quintessentially English seaside town 40 miles (62 kilometers) east of London, that has become a magnet in recent years to those tired of life in the capital. The Metropolitan Police said its early investigation \u201crevealed a potential motivation linked to Islamist extremism,\u201d without providing any details about the basis for that assessment. As part of the investigation, officers were searching two locations in the London area. Amess, who had a wife and five children and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2015, died doing what he\u2019d done countless times \u2013 listening to the concerns of residents in his seaside constituency of Southend West, which incorporates Leigh-on-Sea. Under Britain\u2019s parliamentary system, lawmakers have direct links with their local voters, often hosting open meetings, or \u201csurgeries.\u201d The meetings often take place in local churches and community halls and are publicly advertised. Amess himself posted online where he would be hosting his surgery on Friday. \u201cThe reason he wanted to use the church was because he wanted to be where the people were,\u201d said Rev. Clifford Newman at the Belfairs Methodist Church where Amess was killed. \u201cAnd if you come to somewhere which is in the locality like Belfairs, as opposed to some ivory tower somewhere, people are more likely to feel easier, freer and more likely to open up to him.\u201d At the meetings, the topics raised can range from national matters such as the government\u2019s handling of the coronavirus pandemic to more mundane issues such as requests for speed bumps on busy roads or a dispute over a neighbor\u2019s fence. While members of Parliament don\u2019t necessarily have the power to fix the problems directly, they can pressure officials at the national and local levels to get things done. \u201cI feel as if I have lost a family member. I feel that he was the family of Southend, he was the leader of Southend,\u201d resident Erica Keane,69, said. \u201cAnd he was everywhere! He was at the football pitches, he was in the choirs, he was in the pubs. He was everywhere and he was Southend.\u201d Amess was clearly a popular lawmaker, winning 10 out of 10 elections since 1983. He was a social conservative on issues like capital punishment and abortion, an active supporter of animal rights and campaigned tirelessly on health matters such as obesity. While never serving as a government minister, Amess was a fixer, a lawmaker able to forge alliances across the political divide. His door was seemingly always open to any new politician facing the centuries-old parliament. Friday\u2019s killing renewed concern about the risks politicians run as they go about their work. British politicians generally are not given police protection when meeting constituents \u2013 unlike the high-security measures that are in place in Parliament. But the vitriol directed towards them has escalated in recent years, with many blaming the more polarized atmosphere on social media and the political divisions stoked by Britain\u2019s departure from the European Union. \u201cWe want to be accessible and approachable, but recently there has been more and more violent abuse,\u201d Labour lawmaker Tanmanjeet Dhesi said. Veteran Labour lawmaker Harriet Harman also said she would write to Johnson and ask him to back a non-partisan conference to review the safety of parliamentarians. \u201cSince Jo Cox\u2019s tragic killing, we\u2019ve had changes in our home security, we\u2019ve had changes in security in Parliament, but we haven\u2019t looked at the issue of how we go about that important business in our constituency, but do it in a safe way,\u201d Harman told BBC radio. \u201cI think we must do that now.\u201d Last year, in his own book \u201cAyes & Ears: A Survivor\u2019s Guide to Westminster,\u201d Amess wrote about what he called Cox\u2019s \u201cbarbaric\u201d murder and how security issues could spoil \u201cthe great British tradition\u201d of voters\u2019 easy access to their elected leaders. He warned at the time \u201cit could happen to any of us.\u201d Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page. 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