As an MP for Southend West for almost 25 years, Amess was a tireless campaigner for his constituents and died doing what all good elected representatives do: meeting with them in person to find out their problems and discuss ways to help.
His killer, Ali Harbi Ali, who was sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday, seized the opportunity to attack. Unfortunately, Amess’s family said that he “would have greeted the killer with a smile of friendship.”
Ali was unrepentant, telling the court that he wanted to retaliate for the UK airstrikes in Syria and “if I thought I had done something wrong, I wouldn’t have done it.” But what can you expect from someone so morally bankrupt that he supports ISIS, whose members behead aid workers, drop gay men to their deaths from high-rise buildings, and turn women captured in war into sex slaves?
His actions did bring about the premature end of human life, causing grief and pain to those who loved him and depriving Southend and Britain of a dedicated civil servant, but accomplished little else. British foreign policy will remain unchanged.
Read more
Read more
David Ames’ killer Ali Harby Ali will never be released after receiving a rare…
Even his plan to die as a “martyr” was thwarted when the police arrested him instead of shooting him, as this creation of violence expected.
The murder of Jo Cox of the Labor Party in 2016 by a far-right terrorist shows that there are other cowards in Britain who can convince themselves that the cold-blooded murder of an elected politician can somehow be justified.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of democratic Ukraine and his assassinations of political opponents both abroad and in Russia are other examples of the much broader violence inherent in undemocratic regimes and ideologies based on the abuse of power.
For a while, it was somewhat fashionable in some circles in Britain and the West to view open expressions of support for liberal values as guileless and clumsy, even mocking them.
The massacre in Ukraine, the death cult that ISIS is, and heartless, bloodthirsty fools like Ali are all reminders of how valuable these values really are.