Monday morning came with clear signs the pace of referendum campaigning had stepped up again after decisions on both sides to ease up after the death of Jo Cox on Thursday.
We learned that Sayeeda Warsi was no longer supporting the leave campaign, and heard reaction to David Cameron’s solo appearance on Question Time on Sunday evening before MPs paying tribute to Cox during a special session at Westminster. Here, we look at your reactions to those and other key stories today, including memories of Cox as well as controversial allegations of campaigners trying to exploit her death.
Click on the links at the end of each section to get involved, or head over to our EU referendum live blog to follow the news and discussion as it happens. Guardian readers have also contributed to this article, looking at the divisions in their families the referendum has highlighted.
1. Sayeeda Warsi quits leave campaign over ‘hateful, xenophobic’ tactics
Warsi, the former chair of the Conservative party, said she would no longer support the campaign to leave the European Union just days before the referendum, accusing it of “hate and xenophobia”. She cited Nigel Farage’s anti-immigration poster and “lies about Turkey’s accession to the EU” as a turning point for her and other moderate Eurosceptics. She said leave’s tactics would create a more divided and xenophobic UK.
There was some discussion over whether she had indeed been as strong a campaigner for a leave vote as was being made out, but your conversation reflected her decision’s significance with just days remaining. But many readers echo Warsi’s concerns.
In response to analysis above the line in our fast-moving live blog, some highlighted how the Times had seemingly rowed back on its Warsi scoop between editions – changing language to better reflect her new position.
Hold on. It's taken until three days before the referendum for a member of parliament to work out where they stand on Britain being in the EU? How does this tally with the received wisdom of recent days that MPs are the very best of us?
Not trusting this at all. Still voting to leave. Warsi jumping ship is very, very suspicious.
But for many of you this was the wrong focus.
Interesting that the response to Warsi's defection is 'she wasn't ever a member', rather than 'she's wrong to say we're xenophobic and racist'. Have they just given up on that? Or are they tacitly accepting it? Especially now it's clear she was a Brexit supporter. Means they literally don't have any response to her comments.
She also objected to Gove's constant lies about Turkey's supposed imminent joining of the EU, and during the Mayoral election she complained bitterly about the Goldsmith campaign against Sadiq Khan. There is also evidence ATL that she shared a Brexit platform early on with Daniel Hannan who is claiming he didn't know she was on his side. I think as a prominent Muslim politician, she must be extremely concerned by direction of both leave campaigns, and must be particularly concerned that those Tory politicians leading vote.leave will undoubtedly be in a position to determine the kind of society that will will have if leave wins. This is something that I suspect must be increasingly concerning remain voters, and those who are still making their minds up.
We often see discussions that focus on fact checking, and those around Farage’s poster were no exception.
she said: How is that poster even defensible? … It is perpetuating lies about who those people are.
I am from Slovenia and unlike Farage, I worked for several months with the refugees shown on the evil poster.
As far as I could find out, the photo on the UKIP poster comes from Rigonce (in Slovenia) and was shot on 25 October 2015.
Some people pointed out that there are only men on the poster, implying that a vast majority of the refugees are single men. Well, single men walk faster than women and children, hence they were always in front of the line. People with children also tend to prefer to be in less exposed places for safety reasons.
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This is the PHOTO used by UKIP.
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Here are some more photos shot in Rigonce at the same time as Farage's poster:
THIS PHOTO shows how families with children walk at the back of the line. Note the front of the line in the distance, led by police on horses.
THIS PHOTO shows quite many children also in the middle of the line.
THIS PHOTO is a close-up of some walking refugees. Not quite as scary as Farage's poster, is it.
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Evil dangerous divisive extremist demagoguery coming from Farage.
After Hungary closed its borders to the refugees, Slovenia was the first country on the Balkan route which systematically registered all refugees crossing its borders.
There were more than 400,000 refugees, of which
45% Syrians
30% Afghans
17% Iraqis
49% men
51% women and children (under 18)
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Source: official figures of the government of Slovenia
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I should also add that being in front of the line made no difference. Slovenia adopted a policy to first allow families with children and vulnerable people across the border so that we could first take care of them, while single men were left to wait.
2. Farage accuses Cameron of trying to exploit Jo Cox’s death to help remain
Before tributes were paid to Jo Cox in parliament on Monday afternoon, Nigel Farage decided to defend his anti-immigration poster in the context of her death.
From Andrew Sparrow’s live blog on Monday morning:
On LBC Nigel Farage has just claimed that when he launched his “Breaking Point” poster on Thursday there was “no controversy at all”. He suggested it only became controversial after the killing of Jo Cox.
He is wrong. Before Cox was killed Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, said the poster was “disgusting”. It was also condemned before the attack on Cox by the Green party and by Britain Stronger in Europe.
Further quoting Farage here, one reader wasn’t impressed at all:
Farage accused David Cameron of trying to exploit the death of Jo Cox to help Remain. He said:
What we are seeing here is the prime minister and the Remain campaign trying to conflate the actions of one crazed individual with the motives of half of Britain who think we should get back control of our borders and do it sensibly. And I think that’s quite wrong the way it’s been done ...
I think there are Remain camp supporters out there who are using this tragic death to try to give the impression that this isolated, horrific incident is somehow linked to arguments that have been made by myself, or Michael Gove or anybody else in this campaign. And frankly that is wrong.
Good to see that the promise to improve the tone of the referendum has lasted more than a few days...
What people like Farage and others fail to appreciate is the fact there are some individuals who harbour hatred and loathing towards others. The tone of the debate, which is the responsibility of the politicians, is so important. For if the debate centres around intolerance and plays into the narrative where certain individuals have a mindset of hatred then you have a big problem. Take Farage and his poster which deliberately plays into nationalistic sentiment and brings about overtones that are very hostile, you don't have to be a genius to understand where such sentiments lead. So politicians cannot get away from the fact that they create the sentiment which overshadows how some will act towards each other and how politics is conduct.
It is not long ago that farage's poster would have resulted in a charge of racism. How the country has changed. We should be ashamed. Do we seriously want the leave people running the country?
Politicians are indeed exploiting Jo Cox's tragic death: to revise public opinion on politicians.
The referendum is a false choice; it only serves to benefit politicians through divide and rule, a red herring to distract from real issues etc. Issues exist, but they are not going to be solved by this referendum. Politicians meanwhile are laughing all the way to grabbing/holding on to power and all the way to the bank.
3. European neighbours want Britain to remain – but only just
A survey of almost 11,000 Europeans found support for continued British membership at 54%, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation, and you have been discussing its implications. The piece says that the justice secretary, Michael Gove’s, vision of a British exit from the European Union sparking “the democratic liberation of a whole continent”, on this evidence, falls short of reality.
This was quite obvious all along. If you want to stay, fine, but if need be we can get along without you very well too. Any consequences of Brexit, good or bad, would be much greater for Britain than for the EU. At the end of the day, you are not as important as you think you are.
They want the UK to grasp the nettle and be first out, leading the way for their own countries to escape the EU.
You can click on the links on any of these comments to join the conversation.
If many continental European want Britain to leave, it's not that we're thinking "good riddance!" But if Remain wins, what kind of member will the UK be? If it's a choice between the UK leaving and having a divided, obstructionist UK as a member, I prefer the former.
What Brexiters fail to realise is that whilst Europeans are also unhappy about certain EU aspects, they are willing to fight together to get better. We're begging them in 60's and 70's to take us as we were economically collapsed, and now we want out because our economy is temporarily better. If EU countries decide to make French or German the main business language in EU, we can forget favourable trade deals with China or India.
Finally, readers have been paying tribute to Jo Cox over the past few days, after we asked you to share your memories and the stories of vigils and events that you had attended.
I didn't know Jo Cox, or much about her until the last few hours. But reading about her achievements, her views and aspirations, one word struck me as appropriate, a 'uniter' - one who unites.
She seems the sort of person who would go out of her way to build bridges and to help people. And in these times where we see division opening up everywhere - in and between nations, in politics and political parties and even within our traditional culture - we need people like Jo.
Her loss is tragic, and whatever the motive of her killer, our nation is poorer for her absence.
We’ll be back tomorrow with another roundup of what you’re talking about in the comment sections on the EU referendum. You can help inform what we report on by filling in the form below.
I have for years advocated leaving the E.U. due to it's undemocratic ways and free market ideology but the leave campaign has descended into outright lies and xenophobia though so it is pushing me towards remain.