MP Jo Cox - who was shot and stabbed a week before the UK's referendum on EU membership on Thursday - was a strong supporter of EU membership.

Her death shocked Britain and briefly changed the tone of a campaign that has polarized the country. Campaigning was suspended for two days after her killing in northern England last Thursday.

"She had very strong political views, and I believe she was killed because of those views," her husband Brendan Cox said. "She died because of them, and she would want to stand up for those in death as much as she did in life."

A new low

Cox, a 41-year-old mother of two young children, had been worried about Britain's political culture, its coarsening of language and people taking more extreme positions, her husband said.

"She worried about the tone of the debate" that focused increasingly on immigration and "about the tone of whipping up fears and whipping up hatred," he said.

"I think the EU referendum has created a heightened environment for it, but actually it also pre-existed that," he said.

What impact?

It is unclear how Brendan Cox's words may impact the EU vote that PM David Cameron has said is likely to be "very close."

An opinion poll on Tuesday showed very narrow support for staying in the EU. The Survation poll put the "Remain" camp just one percentage point ahead of the campaign for a Brexit, well within the margin of error.

jbh/bk (Reuters, AP)