Updated | UK Labour MP dies after being shot twice and stabbed

UK Labour MP Jo Cox has died after she was shot twice and stabbed in her constituency in West Yorkshire.

The 41-year-old politician, who has two children, was also kicked and left lying bleeding on the pavement in Birstall, near Leeds, following the attack, an eyewitness said. A 77-year-old man also suffered slight injuries in the attack.

The shooting is believed to have taken place as she came out of the town’s library where she had been holding an advice surgery and meeting constituents.

The death of Jo Cox is a tragedy. She was a committed and caring MP. My thoughts are with her husband Brendan and her two young children.

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) June 16, 2016

The whole of the Labour family, and indeed the whole country, is in shock and grief at the horrific murder of Jo Cox pic.twitter.com/obic5pOCS3

— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) June 16, 2016

Tributes have swarmed Twitter, with Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn being among the first to express their condolences at the tragedy.

Local politicians have also expressed their regret at the sad news, with the Labour Party calling the event "tragic for dempcracy, as well as humanity."

Eyewitness Hichem Ben Abdallah said after a bystander intervened, the attacker pulled out a gun, stepped back and shot her twice.

Abdallah, who was in a cafe next door to the library, told Sky News he saw people rushing down the road towards the library and heard two shots.

He saw a man wearing a “dirty white baseball cap” who started “jostling with somebody”, a bystander who appeared to be trying to stop him.

“I couldn’t see, I could see somebody, the owner of a dry cleaners, he was the hero of the scene.”

Abdallah said Cox was shot from between two cars and then kicked as she lay on the ground.

“It looked like a gun from, I don’t know, the First World War or a makeshift, handmade gun. It’s not sort of like the kind of gun you see normally.”

Abdallah said he could see Cox lying on the ground with her face bleeding and her hair “roughed up”.

He described a hysterical situation with lots of people screaming and said he was “absolutely shocked”.

He added that the gunman walked off “very, very coolly, very slowly”.

West Yorkshire Police said in a statement that a 52-year-old man had been arrested after the attack.