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Mr Speaker
Colleagues, we meet today in heart-breaking sadness, but also in heartfelt solidarity. Any death in such awful circumstances is an outrage and a tragedy. Yet this death in this manner of this person, our democratically elected colleague, Jo Cox, is particularly shocking and repugnant.
All of us who came to know Jo during her all-too-short service in this House became swiftly aware of her outstanding qualities. She was caring, eloquent, principled and wise. Above all, she was filled with, and fuelled by, love for humanity. Devoted to her family and a relentless campaigner for equality, human rights and social justice, Jo was proud to be the Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, where she had her roots and where she was determined to live life to the full. She succeeded superbly.
Jo was murdered in the course of her duty, serving constituents in need. She fought for them just as she fought for others—at home and abroad—who were victims of poverty, discrimination or injustice. An attack such as this strikes not only at an individual, but at our freedom. That is why we assemble here both to honour Jo and to redouble our dedication to democracy.
Tributes to Jo Cox
(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the matter of tributes to Jo Cox.
Last Thursday, Jo Cox was doing what all of us here do: representing and serving the people who elected her. We have lost one of our own, and our society as a whole has lost one of our very best. She had spent her life serving and campaigning for other people, whether as a worker for Oxfam or for the anti-slavery charity, the Freedom Fund, as a political activist and as a feminist.
The horrific act that took Jo from us was an attack on democracy, and our whole country has been shocked and saddened by it, but in the days since the country has also learned something of the extraordinary humanity and compassion that drove her political activism and beliefs. Jo Cox did not just believe in loving her neighbour; she believed in loving her neighbour’s neighbour. She saw a world of neighbours and she believed that every life counted equally.
In a very moving tribute, Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International, said:
“Her campaigning on refugees, Syria and the rights of women and girls made her stand out as an MP who always put the lives of the most vulnerable at the heart of her work.”
Her former colleague at the Freedom Fund, Nick Grono, said:
“Jo was a powerful champion for the world’s most vulnerable and marginalised.”
She spoke out in support of refugees, for the Palestinian people and against Islamophobia in this country. Her integrity and talent was known by everyone in this House, and by the community of Batley and Spen, which she proudly represented here for the past year. It was that community in Batley and Spen that brought her up, as well, of course, as her wonderful family, with whom we share their grief today.
Her community and the whole country has been united in grief and united in rejecting the well of hatred that killed her in what increasingly appears to have been an act of extreme political violence. We are filled with sorrow for her husband, Brendan, and young children. They will never see her again, but they can be so proud of everything she was, all she achieved and all she stood for, as we are, as are her parents, as is her sister and as are her whole wider family.
Jo would have been 42 this Wednesday. She had much more to give, and much more that she would have achieved.
I want to thank the heroes who tried to intervene. Bernard Kenny, a 77-year-old former miner, saw the need and ran to Jo’s aid. He was stabbed and taken to hospital. I am sure that the whole House will join me in wishing Mr Kenny a speedy and full recovery—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Many shopkeepers and bystanders also tried to help, and administered first aid to Jo and Bernard, and there were also the police officers who made the arrest and the national health service paramedics who were on the scene so quickly.
In her maiden speech last year, Jo said:
“Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration …While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 674-75.]
We need a kinder and gentler politics. This is not a factional party political point. We all have a responsibility in this House and beyond not to whip up hatred or sow division.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you, Prime Minister, and Rose Hudson-Wilkin, our wonderful chaplain, for accompanying me to the vigil for Jo last Friday at the Priestley statue in the centre of the lovely town of Birstall. We—all of us—were moved by the unity and warmth of the crowd brought together in grief and solidarity.
I have been very moved by the public outpourings since her death—the hundreds of letters and emails we have all received in solidarity with Jo’s family in their hour of grief—and by the outpouring of charitable donations to causes close to her heart, the White Helmets, HOPE not hate, and the Royal Voluntary Service. Last night, my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and I held a vigil outside our town hall, one of hundreds of vigils attended by tens of thousands of people right across our land who are so shocked by what has happened and want to express that shock and grief.
I also want to thank the other parties in this House, which have offered their sympathy and support at this very difficult time. We are united in grief at her loss, and we must be aware that her killing is an attack on our democracy. It is an attack on our whole society. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) wrote recently,
“Jo’s life was a demonstration against despair”.
In Jo’s tragic death, we can come together to change our politics, to tolerate a little more and condemn a little less. Jo’s grieving husband Brendan said:
“Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people.”
Today, we remember Jo’s compassion and her passion to create a better world. In her honour, we recommit ourselves to that task.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
We are here today to remember an extraordinary colleague and friend. Jo Cox was a voice of compassion, whose irrepressible spirit and boundless energy lit up the lives of all who knew her and saved the lives of many she never ever met. Today, we grieve her loss and we hold in our hearts and prayers her husband Brendan, her parents and sister, and her two children, who are just three and five years old. We express our anger at the sickening and despicable attack that killed her as she did her job serving her constituents on the streets of Birstall. Let me join the Leader of the Opposition in his moving words praising Bernard Kenny and all those who tried to save her. Above all, in this House we pay tribute to a loving, determined, passionate and progressive politician, who epitomised the best of humanity and who proved so often the power of politics to make our world a better place.
I first met Jo in 2006 in Darfur. She was doing what she was so brilliant at: bravely working in one of the most dangerous parts of the world, fighting for the lives of refugees. Her decision to welcome me, then a Conservative Leader of the Opposition, had not been entirely welcomed by all her colleagues and friends, but it was typical of her determination to reach across party lines on issues that she felt were so much more important than party politics. Jo was a humanitarian to her core—a passionate and brilliant campaigner, whose grit and determination to fight for justice saw her, time and time again, driving issues up the agenda and making people listen and, above all, act; drawing attention to conflicts in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; helping to expose the despicable practice of rape in war; her work with Sarah Brown on cutting mortality in childbirth; her support for refugees fleeing the war in Syria. Quite simply, there are people on our planet today who are only here and alive because of Jo.
Jo was a committed democrat and a passionate feminist. She spent years encouraging and supporting women around the world to stand for office, long before she did so herself. When she was elected as an MP, just over a year ago, she said to one of her colleagues that she did not just want to be known for flying around the world tackling international issues, but that she had a profound duty to stand up for the people of Batley and Spen, and she was absolutely as good as her word. As she said in her maiden speech, Jo was proud to be made in Yorkshire and to serve the area in which she had grown up. She belonged there, and in a constituency of truly multi-ethnic, multi-faith communities, she made people feel that they belonged too.
Jo’s politics were inspired by love, and the outpouring and unity of the tributes we have seen in the past few days show the extraordinary reach and impact of her message, for in remembering Jo we show today that what she said in this House is true—and I know it will be quoted many times today:
“we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
This Wednesday, as the Leader of the Opposition said, would have been Jo’s 42nd birthday, and there will be a global celebration of her life and values with simultaneous events in New York and Washington, London, Batley, Brussels, Geneva, Nairobi and Beirut. She should of course have been celebrating her birthday by hosting her traditional summer solstice party. It reminds us that behind the formidable professional was a loving and fun mother, daughter, sister, wife and friend, with a warm welcoming smile and so often laughter in her voice. Jo brought people together; she saw the best in people and she brought out the best in them.
A brave adventurer and a keen climber, Jo was never daunted. When most people hear of a place called the Inaccessible Pinnacle, they leave it well alone. Not Jo. She did not just climb it; she abseiled down it, and did so despite a bad case of morning sickness. It was her irrepressible spirit that helped to give her such determination and focus in her politics, too. A Conservative colleague of mine said this weekend:
“If you lost your way for a moment in the cut and thrust of political life, meeting Jo would remind you why you went into politics in the first place.”
There have been so many moving tributes in the past few days, but if I may I would like to quote someone already mentioned—the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern):
“We mourn your loss, yet know that all you stood for is unbreakable. We promise to stand up, even though we are broken. We promise that we will never be cowed by hate.”
May we and the generations of Members who follow us in this House honour Jo’s memory by proving that the democracy and freedoms that Jo stood for are indeed unbreakable, by continuing to stand up for our constituents, and by uniting against the hatred that killed her, today and forever more.
Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)
I stand here today to honour a friend and a colleague. Along with shock, anger and grief, I have very many fond memories of Jo. Jo and I knew each other for around 10 years. I have known her husband Brendan for longer than that: we first met at a Labour student conference about 18 years ago, and it was through Brendan that I first met Jo.
I remember Jo and Brendan coming round for dinner at my and my husband’s house in London and our visiting them on their boat—first in Ladbroke Grove and later in Wapping. I remember worrying that I had drunk too much wine early in the evening, until I realised that it was the boat that was swaying and not me.
I remember talking with Jo about her future shortly after I became an MP. She was thinking about standing for Parliament and spent a day shadowing me in my constituency of Leeds West, talking to constituents about their problems, campaigning with local party members and attending meetings. By the end of the day, a lot of people were not sure who was the MP and who was doing the shadowing. Jo had a way with people—a way of relating to people from all walks of life. She had a real way of doing that.
Jo’s main hesitation about a parliamentary career was her young family. She worried, as many of us do, about whether she could be a great MP and a great mum at the same time. But when the opportunity came up to represent her home seat of Batley and Spen, Jo felt a special responsibility to step up and do what she could for the place where she was born, grew up and went to school—the place that Jo called home.
Jo wanted to make the world fairer, more equal, more tolerant and more generous. We all have better instincts and deepest fears. Jo appealed to our better instincts—our sense that, as she said in her maiden speech, what we have in common is greater than what divides us.
On Friday morning, less than 24 hours after Jo was killed, I sat in a coffee shop in Batley just a few minutes away from where Jo had been murdered. A woman came over to me and said that she had not known Jo, but that Jo’s death had made her want to be a bit more like her—a better person, a better mother, a better daughter, a better wife. It is ironic that, having travelled to some of the most damaged, war-ravaged places in the world, Jo died so near to her home. But she died doing the job she loved, in the place she loved, representing the people she loved. Her mum and dad said to me that Jo would not have changed a thing. She lived the life she wanted to live. And yet, in her mum’s words:
“She had so much more that she could have done”.
Jo was struck down much too soon. So it now falls on all our shoulders—the woman I met in a Batley coffee shop, Jo’s friends, MPs, all of us—to carry on Jo’s work: to combat and guard against hatred, intolerance and injustice and to serve others with dignity and love. That is the best way we can remember Jo and all she stood for.
But lastly, let me say this. Batley and Spen will go on to elect a new MP. But no one can replace a mother.
Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)
Today we mourn the terrible loss of our friend and colleague Jo, so tragically murdered as she went about her constituency duties last Thursday. The life has been taken of a truly exceptional woman, whose goodness and passionate dedication to humanitarian values has inspired us all. I knew her as a friend, but how unbearable must it be for those who mourn her as a daughter, sister, husband and, above all, as their beloved mum, whom they used to visit for tea each week in Portcullis House.
I first met Jo 10 years ago in London, when we marched against injustice in Darfur, and on two visits to al-Fashir in Darfur, where she helped develop a central humanitarian role for Oxfam. The Leader of the Opposition, as he then was, and I stayed there with her and other humanitarian workers and witnessed her crucial role for Oxfam in supporting women and children and securing water for thousands of refugees in the El Salam and Abu Shouk camps. She gave me the green wristband— I wear it still—to ensure that we remembered the desperate people caught up in what President Bush rightly described as a genocide. It is among her many friends and colleagues in the international humanitarian and development family all around the world, of which she was such a respected and experienced member, that she will be mourned and remembered as a staunch friend of the most desperate and deprived in our world and as a campaigner against injustice.
When she entered this House just 13 short months ago, she rapidly used her deep knowledge to champion the dispossessed. She was Labour to her fingertips, but restlessly dismissive of party political manoeuvring, which she saw as a barrier to progress. Making common cause with a crusty old Tory, she and I became co-chairs of the all-party Friends of Syria.
And she was brave: her energy and effectiveness were an inspiration. We invited ourselves to tea with the Russian ambassador in his London residence. With clever charm but steely determination, this five-foot bundle of old-fashioned Yorkshire common sense dressed him down for his country’s cruelty and cynicism in Syria. I do not believe the Russian ambassador will easily forget that visit.
I think there are many things Jo would want us to remember this afternoon. May I mention just two? I do not believe she would want this vile and unspeakable act to change the open and accessible relationship we enjoy with our constituents. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] All of us take the advice of our local police in protecting those who work with and support us. Thankfully, the record shows these attacks are as infrequent as they are disgraceful. Secondly, Jo would want us in this House to redouble our efforts to resolve the greatest catastrophe of our age: the crisis in Syria, where the lives of more than 11 million people have been ruined while the international community has shown itself disorganised, ineffective and supine.
I mourn Jo today as a friend and as a colleague, but most of all I mourn for her as a mother, whose two gorgeous children will now have to chart the shoals and eddies of life without the love and support of their wonderful, lovely mum.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
I want to add to the very moving tributes to Jo. I got to know Jo after the 2010 general election, when she was elected to chair Labour Women’s Network, which she did for four years. She would regularly burst into my office with that extraordinary energy she had and tell me all that they were doing to help Labour women get elected to Parliament to give women a bigger voice in the party. So many of the Labour women here in this Chamber today who were elected in 2015 and who are so deeply mourning Jo’s loss were women whom, under Jo’s leadership, Labour Women’s Network helped and supported.
Not long after she had her son, she came to give me one of those regular briefings, and, of course, the baby came too—I remember it because she literally did not stop kissing him all the way through the meeting. When she had her daughter, she was still there for the women who were trying to become candidates—texting them support, phoning to commiserate if they did not make it, urging them to try again. Her feminism—her solidarity with other women—was a thread that ran through her and all her work in her community and for humanitarian causes. She always said to me emphatically that her children were her priority above everything. But there was no dividing line between Jo’s maternal heart and her great political heart. Her children will grow up to know what an amazing woman their mother was. She is such a great loss to our politics; and an irreplaceable loss to her family, to whom we send our heartfelt sympathy.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
“What an amazing woman.” “Jo was one of us.” “She was clearly a remarkable person.” These are not my comments, although I clearly concur with them; they are just some of the many comments I heard from constituents and from those I met over the weekend in Batley and Spen.
Conscious of time and wanting to ensure that her friends have the opportunity to speak, I make this short but heartfelt contribution on behalf of my fellow Yorkshire Conservative MPs. I first met Jo just over a year ago. It was not long after the general election and we were both appearing on the region’s “Sunday Politics” show. On arriving at the studio, I was taken to the make-up room, where Jo was already sitting in the chair. Needless to say, I had to spend a lot longer in that chair than she did. As I walked in, Jo looked at me in the reflection in the mirror and greeted me with that wonderful smile that lit her whole face. In that instant—that split second—I knew this was someone I was going to like enormously, and I was not wrong. As we recorded the programme, it was clear that actually we agreed with each other on a number of issues. I am sure that the lack of political argument came as a huge disappointment to the producers. It is a testament to who Jo was that she got her point across effectively and calmly, without the need for talking over people—because when Jo spoke, people listened.
Jo was always passionate about the issues she cared about—never afraid to stand up for those she felt had no voice—but she was also a proud Yorkshirewoman, and our county is rightly proud of her. As I spent time in Birstall and Batley over this weekend, it was clear that her constituents loved her. Almost everyone I spoke to had met her: quite an achievement in just a year. As the floral tributes increased, you could sense the outpouring of love for Jo. On Friday, as some 2,000 people, from all faiths and none, packed into the Al-Hikmah centre in Batley, tribute after tribute spoke of the qualities of one of the most outstanding Members this House had. Many described her as a rising star; personally, I think she was a star, full stop.
The statements from Jo’s husband, her sister and her family—powerful, inclusive, passionate—demonstrate the background that many of her values came from. In her maiden speech, as we have heard, she talked about how
“we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
In everything she did, she promoted those values. She united communities and campaigned for things that highlighted the unifying qualities she cared so passionately about. In these last few days, I have been amazed at the kindness and love expressed on social media and in emails, letters, cards and conversations. The #thankyourmp hashtag has encouraged so many messages of gratitude and appreciation, even from people who have opposing views. In her tragic death, Jo is managing to achieve what she successfully did so much in her life.
I know I am not alone in saying that I will miss Jo. I will miss her compassion, her determination, her conviction—but above all I will miss her smile, whether it be as we passed each other in the corridor or from across the Chamber. Jo was a proud Yorkshire lass; a brilliant Yorkshire rose. My only regret about Jo is that I only knew her for a year.
Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)
Jo and I have been friends for over 20 years, and we have had a wonderful 12 months sharing an office since our election last May. Jo used to use my cupboard as a wardrobe, and I will never forget her dashing around in her cycling gear, grabbing her clothes and shouting something over her shoulder about her latest project or campaign. She often brought her lovely children into the office with her, and if I was lucky I would get a dinosaur drawing or a chance to read them a story. They are wonderful kids, who are truly bathed in love.
The murder of Jo Cox was a national tragedy, but we must also remember the unspeakable personal suffering that it has caused. Jo’s family have lost a loving mother, wife, daughter and sister. The fearless Jo Cox never stopped fighting for what is right. She gave voice to the voiceless. She spoke truth to power. She exemplified the best values of our party and of our country: compassion, community, solidarity and internationalism. She put her convictions to work for everyone she touched—for the people of Batley and Spen, for the wretched of Syria and for victims of violence and injustice everywhere.
On Thursday, Jo was assassinated because of what she was and because of what she stood for. But out of the deep darkness of Jo’s death must now come the shining light of her legacy. So let us build a politics of hope, not fear; respect, not hate; unity, not division. I can only imagine Jo’s reaction had she seen the poster that was unveiled hours before her death—a poster on the streets of Britain that demonised hundreds of desperate refugees, including hungry, terrified children, fleeing from the terror of ISIS and from Russian bombs. She would have responded with outrage, and with a robust rejection of the calculated narrative of cynicism, division and despair that it represents, because Jo understood that rhetoric has consequences. When insecurity, fear and anger are used to light a fuse, an explosion is inevitable.
In the deeply moving tribute that Brendan Cox made last Thursday, he urged the British people to unite and fight against the hatred that killed Jo. It is the politics of division and fear, the harking back to incendiary slogans and the rhetoric of “Britain First” that twists patriotism from love of country into an ugly loathing of others. We must now stand up for something better, because of someone better. In the name of Jo Cox and all that is decent, we must not let this atrocity intimidate our democracy. We must now work to build a more respectful and united country. This is our time to honour the legacy of the proud Yorkshire lass who dedicated her life to the common good and who was so cruelly taken away from us in the prime of her life. Jo Cox, we love you, we salute you and we shall never forget you.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
Jo Cox was a politician who spanned continents and political parties. Among other causes, she campaigned alongside many of us on behalf of people with autism. With her death, we have lost a powerful advocate.
When I came into this House in 1992, I sat alongside the first woman MP for Batley and Spen, Elizabeth Peacock. She held her surgeries for 14 years in the Birstall library, and she exchanged letters with Jo when Jo was still at school. Like all of us, she has been shocked to the core by this tragedy. She asked me to say that the attack on Jo was an attack on our democracy and on the very basis of our Government and political system. She will mourn the loss of an outstanding friend in politics.
Jo’s family will mourn her as irreplaceable. We will mourn a woman of talent and humanity, a rising star and a bright light, whose voice may now be extinguished but whose spirit, which epitomises our democracy, will not be forgotten. It will inspire not only her children but many generations of politicians still to come.
Holly Lynch (Halifax) (Lab)
This is the hardest speech I will ever give. However, it was not difficult to write because there was so much that I wanted to say. Jo Cox, the hon. Member for Batley and Spen, was the very best of us. She may have been small, but in politics as in life, she packed a punch that was simply beyond measure. She came into this place with such passion and energy. From the start, she had a clarity about what she was here to achieve and what needed to change, and she was not going to waste any time in getting on with it. She knew that the people counting on her could not afford to wait.
Jo’s experiences of working in some of the most dangerous places in the world, caring for some of the most desperately vulnerable, upholding the principles of justice and basic human rights, were reflected in her politics and her character. It meant that when she spoke, people listened. There was a weight to what she had to say and she was not afraid to say it. She had a vision of a world better than the one that has taken her from us.
Characteristically, Jo would work across the Benches to build support for change in the most collegiate way. That has been reflected in the tributes paid to her.
When the new 2015 intake of Labour MPs arrived in Westminster in May last year, our then acting leader, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman), told us:
“Every day you are an MP is a day that you can make a difference.”
Nobody embodied that sentiment more than Jo.
With friends and colleagues, Jo would speak candidly about the challenges of balancing a young family with the pressures of being a diligent and effective Member of Parliament. I was both Jo’s friend and Jo’s Whip, which should have been a difficult balance to strike, but it was not. That is not to say that she was the easiest person to whip as she knew that certain late night votes were not as important as being there to put her children to bed and to tuck them in.
Jo managed to reconcile being a hero of our movement with being incredibly down to earth. People only had to hear Jo speak to know that her roots were firmly in Batley and Spen. She was a daughter of Yorkshire and she fought tirelessly for those who had put their faith in her.
Like all of us, I will remember Jo in many different ways. She spoke of her predecessor, Dr Broughton, in her maiden speech, alluding to the fact that he had been credited with bringing down a Government, and she put Government Front Benchers on notice with a smile that we all came to know and love. Although they laughed it off at the time, I would not be at all surprised if they had become increasingly nervous once they began to realise just how formidable she was.
I will also remember Jo in the voting Lobbies in her cycling kit and trainers, leaving us all wondering where she found the energy. I remember hearing about the trials and tribulations of the kids recently having chicken pox. I remember regional news following her as a newly elected MP and capturing the moment when one of the kids lost their shoe to the Thames and Jo had to try to retrieve it, all before starting the day. I will remember her warmth, her spirit and her laugh.
Those of us from my intake who had the pleasure of Jo’s company as she hosted an event to mark our first year in office last Tuesday will be eternally grateful for those treasured memories and the chance to all be together one last time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Anna Turley) told me that she will remember Jo as a comet: burning brightly, lighting up the dark, awe-inspiring, giving off sparks of heat, light and positive energy wherever it goes. I cannot think of a better way of describing her.
Jo was the heart and soul of the Labour Benches and we are heartbroken. We loved her every day and we will miss her every day. She inspired us all and I swear that we will do everything in our power to make her and her family incredibly proud.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
Today, this House is united in grief. In Jo Cox we have lost a respected and treasured colleague and friend, and on behalf of SNP and Plaid Cymru MPs and the people we represent, I want to pay tribute to a remarkable woman whose passion, determination and dedication characterised the short time she was with us, and rubbed off on those around her.
I was lucky enough to know Jo long before either of us was elected to Parliament, when we both worked for Oxfam. Jo was an inspired and inspiring colleague. When we first met, Jo, still only in her twenties, was already heading up Oxfam’s advocacy office in Brussels, lobbying to make trade fair for developing countries, and she was a joy to work with.
Jo was incredibly talented. She was very smart, focused and driven, but it was the way she worked with others that really marked her out: she was supportive, inclusive and generous, and she radiated positive energy. Jo really was a bright star who helped others to shine. She could have done anything with her life, but she chose to spend it helping others and making the world a better place.
Inevitably, over the last few days I have been sharing memories of Jo with many of our former Oxfam colleagues, some of whom worked far more closely with her on a daily basis than I did. I want to share with the House just a few of the things they said, because they sum up well the sort of person Jo was before she entered Parliament and the values that she brought with her. One of her friends says:
“Jo brought energy, fun and an absolute focus on wanting to improve the lives of those living in poverty. She was determined to make Governments do more to end the conflict in Darfur and protect civilians. She embodied what it meant to be a true humanitarian.”
Another says:
“The wonderful thing about Jo was how much she genuinely cared—for those around her and for those far away. She was not afraid to wear her heart on her sleeve.”
Another friend describes her as:
“A massive bundle of brains and energy—a woman who radiated friendly warmth and intellect.”
Almost everyone I have spoken to has mentioned how connected Jo was to her Yorkshire roots. As one friend observed:
“She was proud of where she was from, but rightly saw no contradiction between that and caring about the lives of people on the other side of the world.”
We often witnessed that here in Parliament too, where Jo fought with equal resolve for refugee children fleeing Syria and the children in her own constituency growing up in poverty. I like to think that it was those deep, strong roots in her own Yorkshire community that enabled Jo to branch her arms around the world with so much love. She was proud of Yorkshire; Yorkshire should be immensely proud of her. I laid white roses for Jo at the vigil in Aberdeen on Saturday organised by Lewis Macdonald MSP and Dame Anne Begg, but I know that Jo’s friends and former colleagues have been holding memorials for her in countries all over the world.
The last time I saw Jo was at the Macmillan Cancer Support parliamentary tug of war event just a couple of weeks ago. The conventional wisdom is that height and weight are distinct advantages in tug-o-war. [Laughter.] Jo had neither of those attributes: her stature was quite possibly the only thing about her that was diminutive. Nevertheless, there she was pulling for the women MPs’ team with every ounce of her strength and every fibre of her being, and with sheer, dogged determination. That is how I want us to remember her: this strong, brave, determined woman giving her all with absolute commitment. I want to remember Jo Cox for how she lived, not how she died. I want her to be a symbol of the politics of hope, not the politics of fear.
This Parliament is a lot poorer for Jo’s passing, and we in the SNP and Plaid Cymru extend our sincere condolences to her colleagues and friends in the parliamentary Labour party. Jo’s constituents in Batley and Spen have been robbed of an outstanding and dedicated MP—the person they chose, democratically, to be their voice in this place.
To Brendan, Cuillin and Lejla, and the Leadbeater family: we know your loss is immeasurable and that your lives have been changed irrevocably. We hold all of you in our hearts. I hope that in time, when they are older, Jo’s children will come to understand more fully just how much their brilliant, beautiful mother was able to contribute to humanity in her short, purposeful and well-lived life. Jo, those of us who knew you will never forget you. I hope you rest in peace.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
In a tale of another Yorkshire tragedy that led to action and hope in the midst of sadness, we are told:
“The flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire. Every stage of their growth has its own beauty, but the last phase is always the most glorious.”
And it was glorious, Jo.
I was in awe of Jo. To be honest, I was always a bit envious. She was energetic, brave, dynamic, fit, beautiful and passionate. I cannot ever recall seeing her sad, negative or without hope. She once told me, in a one-to-one meeting as my manager at Oxfam, that she did not do touchy-feely, that I was being too emotional, that we needed to “get on with it” and sort out the campaign we were working on.
Jo believed in building bridges. She was fiercely Labour to her core, but when we thought our party was on the way out of government, she knew there were bigger things at stake. We had to reach out to others: we had to convince them of the case for tackling global poverty and for standing up for civilians in conflict and crisis and for women and girls. She was never satisfied with platitudes. She wanted action. We have all been overwhelmed over the last few days with just how many lives she touched, from the refugee camps of Darfur to the mountains of Pakistan, but she was not some do-gooder jetting in to hand out alms. She wanted to know why, who was responsible and what we could do about it.
Jo had a remarkable mind and an incredible ability to multi-task. I once met her to go to lobby some very senior officials in the Foreign Office about various crises. She turned up, typically, in a rush with her climbing kit hanging out of her bag. We sat on the floor in King Charles Street, where she then jumped straight into reading a briefing. She knew exactly what the key points were within minutes and then delivered the crucial information to the decision makers with utter confidence and assuredness. It was brilliant. That brilliance was universally felt by all those she worked with. Moira described her as a
“fearless, compassionate professional with such an impish streak.”
Vicky said that Jo had smarts and spirit. Conor, who worked closely with her, said that she taught him
“how to get stuff done … with passion and professionalism”.
Our friend Ben, who spent a famous night on a mountain with her in Pakistani Kashmir, reminded our friends in recent days that everyone assumes that in NGOs people must all be really kind. He said:
“But the truth is we are not ... we can be vain, arrogant and mean… not Jo. Not just did everyone like Jo. More impressively Jo liked everyone. She was furious at injustice … but saw no one as a permanent enemy, and everyone as a potential ally.”
Though Jo was kind, she was a steely edged campaigner. Our friend and colleague Phil Bloomer said that she was
“one of the most kind, caring and committed people I have had the privilege to know … but she could also make herself a right royal pain in the back-side if she profoundly disagreed with you: a lesson many political leaders learnt too late, and to their cost.”
He reflected on Jo’s years influencing Peter Mandelson when she headed Oxfam’s Brussels office at a young age. He had to quickly adapt his approach. But most of all, Phil hit the mark. He said:
“Jo loved justice ... Jo loved Love”.
Adrian, our friend, told me of the time he saw Jo just a few months ago over a sandwich. He told me that he
“saw again the bravery and determination as she figured out how to hold feet to the fire—in her own party as well as her opponents—over Syria and the good we failed to do.”
Our close mutual friend and campaigner Kirsty summed Jo up perfectly for me. She said that Jo
“never just asked ‘what do you think?’ always ‘what should we do’. This is what we should do. Act. Love. Unite.”
That was the Jo I knew. Kind, caring, passionate, principled, thoughtful—an intellect, but most of all focused on doing for others, not just being for ourselves.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
We stand united as colleagues, indeed comrades, to mourn someone who was an enormous figure in the House and who would have gone on to be much greater still. For me and millions of others, the snatching away of a wife and mother, hugely loving and hugely loved, is what has moved Britain to stand in collective grief this last few days.
Others who knew Jo well have commented on her huge achievements in her career before Parliament and in the time she served during the past 13 months as an outstanding Member of Parliament. My path crossed hers as we took the same side in the campaign for this country to show compassion to desperate refugees, especially child refugees, fleeing Syria and elsewhere. Her winsome, authentic and informed contribution to the refugees debate seemed to me critical. Her legacy is one of building bridges and not walls; of getting this Lancastrian to wear this white Yorkshire rose; of combining passion in what she believed in with kindness in how she expressed it. Can we all agree now that that is how our politics shall be conducted? We are shocked and heartbroken at her loss. On behalf of my party, on behalf of everyone in Cumbria, I want to say that our enduring love and sympathy is with Jo’s family.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Let me begin by saying again Jo’s own words:
“Who can blame desperate parents for wanting to escape the horror that their families are experiencing? Children are being killed on their way to school…one in three children have grown up knowing nothing but fear and war. Those children have been exposed to things no child should ever witness, and I know that I would risk life and limb to get my two precious babies out of that hellhole.” —[Official Report, 25 April 2016; Vol. 608, c. 1234.]
When Jo spoke, we all listened. Why? Because the principle that she drew on in that speech and in life is the simple idea that we have more in common than that which divides us. Her words demonstrate that if we choose, we do not always have to see ourselves as different from those far away. We can choose to see what unites us. We all listened because her words spoke to each and every one of us.
To know Jo, even a little bit, was to understand how proud she was of her family and to hear her relish her role as a mum. Many of her friends have spoken of that joy, that warmth and that natural charm. She had a way of talking not just about herself and her own ideas, but always about what we could do together.
Jo took on the toughest of problems and the most forgotten causes, and fought campaigns that we could all feel a part of and that would truly make change happen. Whether it was Darfur or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jo knew how easily our global responsibilities fade from view without conscious activism. As she herself wrote:
“This active internationalist approach is not inevitable. It has been, and is still contested across the political spectrum.”
Jo wrote about a fight not just for one country, one people or one cause, but for a world view that bestowed on each of us rights and on all of us the responsibility to protect. That is especially true in relation to her activism in pursuit of women’s rights. Faced with the great joy and great risk of motherhood, women are uniquely and equally vulnerable. When the world could not find the wherewithal to meet the millennium development goal to cut maternal mortality, Jo took on this huge challenge and made global leaders sit up and listen to women.
Jo did not just believe that women’s voices should be heard; she made it so. She was a feminist whose activism saved women’s lives and whose political skill got women elected to this House. Many in this place will never have seen the quiet, careful work of Jo and her colleagues at Labour Women’s Network to give women the knowledge and networks to take control and win power. She did it not by hectoring or lecturing, but by believing in the goodness of others. As Jo’s friend and mine, Kirsty McNeill, has written:
“Half holding you upright, half shoving you forward. That’s what it meant to have Jo’s arm around your shoulder.”
How we all long for those arms round our shoulder today—for one more hug, and definitely for one more smile—but it cannot be.
The words from Jo’s maiden speech must therefore truly ring out today:
“we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]
Cheap populism cannot take hold. Jo’s vision of our country, explained in that speech, is one that we know in our hearts to be true. It is not where you come from that matters; it is the compassion and love in your heart. You might be ferociously proud of your home town, as Jo was, but you know that compassion does not end at its boundaries.
And here is another thing that does not end: Jo Cox’s life had real meaning. She gave love to us all and that can never be lost. We may feel lost today, but inside us all, the love is still there.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
I speak today, by agreement, for all the Northern Ireland parties and Members represented in the House: the Democratic Unionist party; the Social Democratic and Labour party; the Ulster Unionists; and the hon. Member for North Down (Lady Hermon). We sit together and speak with one voice to echo the common, united response of all the people we represent at home in Northern Ireland.
Whatever is said cannot adequately express our deepest, most heartfelt feelings but, through the words that have been spoken already and that will be spoken, I pray that Jo’s family may find some comfort and solace at this terrible time. We all want to extend our deepest sympathies to Brendan, her dear children and their wider family circle at the tragic loss of someone so loved and admired, and who will be so missed. We also want to extend our sympathies to the Labour party and the wider Labour movement, to the people of Batley and Spen, and to the many, many friends of Jo who have spoken about her in recent days in such moving ways.
It is right that we as parliamentarians meet together in this Parliament today not just to record our disgust or outrage at what has happened to an honoured colleague, but to express our determination to uphold the values of democracy and the open, accessible way in which we conduct our political life in this country. A life such as Jo Cox’s should not be defined by its end. It was her life that counts, and that is what we remember today and should always remember.
We in Northern Ireland, on all sides and in all parties, who have direct and personal experience of murderous attacks and have indeed lost friends and dear colleagues to men of violence, have felt the pain and anguish that those close to Jo are going through now. Our hearts go out to them and our thoughts are with them. Our prayers are that God will comfort them and, in due course, in the words of Holy Scripture,
“give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness”.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
We are here today to remember our beloved Jo Cox—a woman who loved and was loved; a woman who fizzed with life, compassion and commitment to social justice; and a woman who cherished her family, who served her community and whose sole aim was to leave the world a better place than she found it. She did, didn’t she? Following the cross-party group on Syria, the Government agreed to take 3,000 unaccompanied Syrian child refugees. In 13 short months, Jo achieved more than some MPs achieve in 13 years.
Jo had an open mind and an open heart, and the world really needed somebody like her—somebody who never gave up; and somebody who knew that, by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we can alone.
We send our deepest condolences to her dear family, and thank them for sharing her with us. It was a blessing to have known Jo. Rest in peace, sweet friend.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I first met Jo through my daughter Madeleine. Madeleine was working for Glenys Kinnock in Brussels and said, “I’m not worried about leaving Glenys because I’ve found this brilliant replacement called Jo Cox”, so we go back a long way. There was a little bit of friendly rivalry because my daughter went on to work for David Miliband and Jo for Gordon and Sarah Brown, but it was all in good part.
Only a year ago, as a long-standing Member of Parliament for Huddersfield, suddenly I had two brilliant new young Members of Parliament just down the road from me, in Dewsbury and in Batley and Spen. Was I happy! What a change they made to this Chamber. Jo was wonderful, but, as someone said to me the other day, “Don’t be mistaken about Jo. She’s as tough as old boots when she’s campaigning for anything. I upset her once or twice about things, but she always got her own way.”
If you have a daughter like Jo, you must have a darned good family behind you. I am a grandparent—my 10th granddaughter was born only a few days ago. To have a girl like Jo, you need a wonderful, supportive family. We have a duty in this House to watch over that family in the days and months and years to come. We have a duty to support that family and those children.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I did not know Jo well at all, but the more I have learned about her life and work makes me wish so much that I had done. I want to convey the Green party’s very sincere condolences and our deep sadness. Indeed, on behalf of the many constituents who have been in touch with me, as constituents have been in touch with all hon. Members, I want to send those deepest condolences to Jo’s husband, Brendan, her children, and her other family and friends.
Jo knew what really mattered and cut through to what was important. Her commitment to cross-party working, to speaking out for the voiceless and to fighting for justice are a shining light. As we pause and reflect on all Jo achieved in her short time as an MP, there is also the opportunity to recommit ourselves to the many causes for which she was such a powerful advocate, and to pledge to not let them be forgotten.
It seems that all who worked with or knew Jo considered her a friend. I want to mention in particular the staff in her constituency office, who will no doubt be hugely affected by the events of last week.
Jo was a formidable woman, juggling the demands of serving her constituents with those of being a mother. She will be very much missed and will always be remembered. We pledge in her memory to do all we can to continue to put hope before hatred.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
This is a speech I could not even have imagined giving just a few days ago. How bitterly ironic it feels to be here, in one of the greatest debating chambers the world has ever known, and yet no words can do justice to our sense of loss or the grief we feel for Jo’s family.
My wife Claire and I have known Jo and her husband Brendan for many years. They are a couple very much like each other—driven, passionate and impatient to change the world. I remember before the last election having dinner with them on their boat and encouraging Jo to stand for selection if her home town constituency of Batley and Spen came up. I thought she would be a brilliant candidate for Labour and a huge asset to Parliament. Her whole life had been spent serving others. I told her she could continue to do that here in Parliament, yet her willingness to enter public service has now cost her her life.
Over the weekend many people have rightly praised Jo’s maiden speech or cited her campaigning on Syria and refugees as the way that they will remember her, but a different sort of story about Jo as a friend and a mother has been the memory most on my mind. It was at Labour party conference about five years ago, when my wife was breastfeeding our daughter at a fringe event and feeling quite self-conscious about it—some older comrades were still not at ease with that sort of thing—[Laughter.] Jo saw that and she sat down next to Claire and began to feed her own son, just to show solidarity with Claire and to make her feel better—[Laughter.] It is just one example of how Jo always thought of others in her everyday life. They went on to work together through Labour Women’s Network, which Jo would chair while also changing the world through her day job and raising her young family with so much love.
Through Labour Women’s Network, Jo would fight for other working-class women to have the same opportunities as her, to end everyday sexism and to make politics a safer space for women. What agony it is that her life is now for ever testament to just how important those causes are. Jo was right to believe in public service, she was right to believe in making the world a better place, and she was right to believe in this place.
In the overwhelming grief of this story there are shards of hope that exemplify just what this country is really about: the two unarmed police officers who wrestled her assailant to the ground; the 77-year-old retired miner, Bernard Kenny, who dashed from his car to try to save her; and her assistant, Fazila Aswat, who was with her when it happened. Theirs are the true faces of the Britain that we love.
Most of all, there is Jo herself. Once, when I had my own daughter with me in this place, she turned to me and asked, “Daddy, can little girls become the Prime Minister?” When our daughters ask us that question, let us tell them and inspire them with Jo’s story—Jo the parliamentarian, Jo the campaigner, Jo the mother and Jo our friend.
Mr Speaker
Colleagues, thank you to everyone who has spoken in tribute to Jo and in support of her family. There is a tributes motion and I have to put the Question, but I hope that, when I do so, it will attract the loudest unified response in the history of this House.
The Question is that this House has considered the matter of tributes to Jo Cox. As many as are of that opinion, say Aye. [Hon. Members: “Aye!”] To the contrary, No.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the matter of tributes to Jo Cox.
Colleagues, we will adjourn formally in a moment or two. Before we do so, may I invite all right hon. and hon. Members to follow me in processing behind the Serjeant at Arms via Central Lobby and St Stephen’s Entrance to St Margaret’s Church across the road for a service of prayer and remembrance for the life of Jo Cox? Perhaps I can take this opportunity to re-emphasise that our chaplain, the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, will be at the service and will also be available in days to come to support Members, the staff of Members and the staff of this House.
Business without Debate
Sittings of the House
Adjournment
House of Lords
Jo Cox MP
(8 years, 5 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Stowell of Beeston) (Con)
My Lords, Jo Cox was clearly a remarkable woman. I never met her. Tragically, the first thing I knew about her was that she had been killed. We are shocked that a young woman in the prime of her life has been stabbed and shot dead in the streets of a town like Birstall on a Thursday lunchtime. We are sad that a husband has lost his wife and two young children will never see their mother again, and we are horrified because Jo was a Member of Parliament who was killed by a constituent while she was going about her work serving the people of Batley and Spen.
We have learned a lot about Jo over the past few days. None of us could fail to be impressed by her dedication and commitment both before and since entering Parliament. She was a woman who clearly cared about other people. She had travelled far, had wide horizons and she thought big. For me, what is most moving has been hearing what was clearly a woman with a passion for the world say in her maiden speech how proud she was to come from Yorkshire and to be representing the place where she had grown up and the people she had grown up among. The impression she gave this stranger, listening to her for the first time, was that Jo Cox was a woman who knew who she was, and I really like that.
We are not just paying tribute to Jo Cox today, we are standing in solidarity and shoulder to shoulder with the other House of Parliament. The House of Commons has lost one of its own in the most dreadful of circumstances. It is not the first time. Over the past 40 years, we have lost Airey Neave, Robert Bradford, Anthony Berry and Ian Gow at the hands of IRA terrorists. One of them, Robert Bradford, was holding a constituency surgery at the time of the attack and his caretaker was also killed. Thankfully, Stephen Timms survived a violent attack by a constituent, as did the noble Lord, Lord Jones, when he was the MP for Cheltenham, although tragically the noble Lord’s assistant was killed in that attack. But Jo Cox is the first MP to be killed in the line of duty by a constituent.
Today, as Leader of this House and on behalf of all noble Lords, I would like to pay tribute to all Members of the other place, our elected colleagues who follow their vocation to improve things for the benefit of those they represent. Their route to Parliament is rarely easy and it can take them years. It is usual for them to have to accept failure many times before being selected to represent their party, hopefully in a winnable seat and often not before they have had to stand and lose in a hopeless one. Those who do make it work tirelessly for their constituents, not just here in Westminster, but every week in their constituencies. But as the last election showed, dedicated or not, MPs can be unceremoniously rejected if the electorate is fed up with their party at large.
The British people deserve the best public servants to represent them in Parliament. Jo Cox was clearly a great public servant for her constituents. Thankfully, in that respect she was far from alone. Marking her death, tragic and unfair as it is, presents at least one opportunity for the sake of good democracy, and it is this: for those of us who know how hard MPs work, to raise awareness of their commitment to the people they represent.
On behalf of the whole House, I offer my sincere condolences to Jo’s husband, children, parents and sister, and to all her family and friends. On behalf of the Conservative Party in this House, I offer all of our colleagues on the Labour Benches our deepest sympathies for the loss of their dear friend. Finally, on behalf of the House of Lords, I offer our condolences and respect to our colleagues in the other place.
Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader for her comments, because the murder of Jo Cox MP almost defies words. It is so devastating and so heartbreaking that any words are inadequate to express the scale and the depth of the loss—the loss to her husband Brendan and their children, to her parents, her sister, her family, but also to that wider family of friends, colleagues and constituents. It is a loss that has affected everybody who knew her, but also so many more who had not yet got to know her. It is not just the loss of who and what she was, but the loss of what would have been and what more she would have done. It is a loss that is so profound and overwhelming that we, individually and collectively as a nation, are the poorer for it.
Jo was clearly very special. She was exceptional. A physically tiny Yorkshire lass—she could not have been more than five-foot high—she was morally and intellectually strong. Driven by her values, she knew she had a role to play in creating a better country and a better world. For the all too short time she was in Parliament she brought those values, with all the skills, experience and knowledge from her past roles with Oxfam and NGOs, working with Glenys Kinnock, the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, and for Gordon and Sarah Brown, to her life as a Labour MP. We have heard her described as a force of nature, decent and determined. She made people feel good about themselves and what they could achieve. She was passionate, she was serious, and she was good fun. As one of her friends in the House of Commons said:
“She was the best of us, and she made the best of us”.
She saw that a role in politics should be a force for good—a force that could make lives better. That is what brought her, like so many others, into politics.
Our democracy will be seriously undermined and weakened if this outrage stops our brightest and our best from stepping forward into public life. When good people of passion and principle tell their family and their friends they want to be a councillor or a Member of Parliament, I want their families to be proud of them, not to fear for them. Yet the level of vitriol and violence contaminating our public and political life will deter some of the best people who we need the most. Almost every MP can report threats and abuse, sometimes violent. Although social media makes it easier, it is too easy just to blame the internet.
All of this has coincided with the deterioration of political debate. Of course we must argue our differences on policy with emotion and with conviction, but too many have gone beyond that. The tone of the debate and the language, particularly around immigration and asylum seekers, shames many. The drip-feed of denigration and abuse poisons the very air that we breathe, so those of us who can speak out, and those who report and write, need to think very carefully about past actions and words, and the way forward. In the words of Jo’s husband Brendan, Jo would have wanted us to,
“all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her”.
The hope for the future is that the good in society comes to the fore, as we have seen in the reaction from the public, both at home and abroad, at this terrible time, and as we saw in the amazing courage and bravery of Bernard Kenny, who risked his own life, and in the love and loyalty of her assistant, Fazila Aswat.
Over the weekend, my husband drew my attention to a 1968 drawing of Martin Luther King standing over a cross-legged Gandhi saying, “They think they’ve killed me”. That was saying that—despite his death, because of how he had inspired others—his values, commitment and passion lived on and, through others, achieved, and still achieve, great things. Jo’s legacy has to be that same inspiration—an inspiration to others to continue her work; an inspiration to us all to be better; an inspiration to those who have encouraged hatred and bitterness that they must stop. More than anything else, it must be an inspiration to others to fulfil her promise and her legacy. The following message was left in the Batley book of condolences, and I can think of no finer tribute. I imagine that it is from a young woman who had met Jo. She wrote:
“You told me I’d do great things. I’m going to prove you right and I’m going to carry on your legacy”.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness (LD)
My Lords, at this time of terrible shock and profound loss, I wish on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Benches to extend our heartfelt sympathy to Jo Cox’s constituents, her colleagues on the Labour Benches and above all to her husband, children, parents, sister and wider family. I am sure that, like many in your Lordships’ House, I never had the privilege of meeting Jo Cox, but as I have listened to the outpouring of tributes we have heard since the tragic event of Thursday afternoon, I realise that part of my sense of loss is that I did not have the opportunity to know such an incredible person.
Jo Cox was a humanitarian and a deeply committed public servant. In her role as an aid worker, she spent time working with victims of rape in Darfur, dealing with child soldiers in Uganda and tribal elders in Afghanistan. She reached out across the world and touched the lives of many. Her knowledge and experience came together with her empathy and compassion and gave the voiceless a strong and powerful voice in Parliament, where she showed vision and courage in standing up for refugees and for Syria. Jo Cox was a woman of courage and conviction. She fought passionately for the things she believed in. She fought for her constituents in Batley and Spen, she fought for those overseas who could not fight for themselves, and she fought to make this country a better place.
To be a Member of Parliament is both an honour and a privilege. It is a privilege to be elected by your constituents to represent their best interests in Parliament, but to serve your constituents and to help tackle the problems of those in your own community is a deep and lasting honour. Tragically, Jo Cox lost her life in the line of parliamentary duty, representing the people she was elected to serve. To be involved in politics is to be dedicated to public service, to be driven by a desire to make things better for our community and for our country and, indeed, for our world.
In the days since her death, Jo Cox has come to embody what is decent and good in our democracy. Too often, we see fear and division dominate political debate. Too often, we see fear and mistrust of others being used to manipulate the public mood. Jo rejected that approach. She worked to bring people together and was hopeful that we could build a country which is united. The words of her maiden speech in the House of Commons have been often quoted because of the truth contained in their simplicity:
“we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/6/15; col. 675.]
In response to her death, one of my own noble friends has written:
“Time to stop the anger and ask ourselves what sort of country do we want to be? What can we do to truly honour Jo Cox, who in her life, said no to the easy option of cynicism and took the much harder route of trying to make the world a better place. Jo Cox’s murder is a wake up call to all of us. If we can show just an iota of the courage and love that Jo showed in her life, or just one ounce of the compassionate bravery that her husband has shown since her death, then we can and will create the better world that Jo Cox lived and worked for”.
Her family, her friends, her constituents, our country and, yes, the global community are so, so much poorer because of Jo Cox’s death. But the world and the lives of countless people were made so, so much better by her life, so may the memory of Jo’s remarkable life of compassion and commitment be a lasting inspiration to us all.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I speak on behalf of our Convenor, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, who is unavoidably absent today and regrets not being here. I also speak on behalf of my Cross-Bench colleagues. I associate myself and these Benches with the remarks already made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Stowell and Lady Smith, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness. We on these Benches join others in sending our condolences to the family and friends of Jo Cox, Member of Parliament. In particular, our thoughts are with her husband Brendan and their two children Cuillin and Lejla, who have had their wife and mother taken away from them in such tragic, violent and cruel circumstances.
The remarkable and extensive tributes paid to Jo Cox from across the political spectrum and across the world following her death are a testament to her character, commitment and personality, and the respect that she was held in. While admired and respected by all who knew her, Jo Cox was not widely known nationally. But many today, including myself, sorely wish that that they had known and met her. One friend from the charity Avaaz—the word Avaaz means “shout or make noise” in Hindi—described her as an advocate for the voiceless and those in poverty. Seeing her pictured in a T-shirt with the logo of Parliament’s tug-of-war fundraising challenge between Lords and Commons for the Macmillan cancer charity defined her as a politician, a philanthropist and a sportsperson.
In an email forwarded to me, another friend of hers said that Jo brought out the best in everyone, even when she was being tough, and was quick to put people at ease with her bubbly personality—even when recruiting people to join her to climb her beloved Scottish mountains. Apparently, she enjoyed bagging Munros. Her love of Scottish mountains was reflected in the name of her son. The same friend also talked about humanity. She said that Jo could see the same humanity in the eyes of a Darfuri child, a Syrian refugee or a lonely octogenarian. She worked for many charities; one closer to my own interests is when she worked with Sarah Brown and the White Ribbon Alliance to reduce maternal deaths in developing countries. Her efforts made a difference.
As an MP, in a relatively short time Jo made a huge impact, as we have heard, speaking eloquently on subjects close to her heart and raising issues of concern to her constituents. Clearly, she was a popular and hard-working Member of Parliament. That she died a violent death while serving her constituents has shone a light on this important component of our democratic process and the risks that our MPs face in the course of their duties—even more so, our women MPs. We all owe much to those in public life, especially our MPs. It is they who keep our democracy alive, for which we should be grateful.
On this sombre occasion, from these Benches we pay tribute today to Jo Cox, Member of Parliament, whose life has been tragically cut short while she still had much more to give. The nation has clearly lost a rising star. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and their great loss.
The Lord Bishop of Leeds
My Lords, I speak on behalf of the Archbishops and Bishops and the Church of England. I do not want to repeat what has already been said but to associate ourselves with those remarks and offer deep sympathy to Brendan, the children and the wider family, and to the Members of the other place.
We live with our mortality and the fragility of civilisation. It is not very deep, and it can be easily penetrated. When I heard of Jo’s death, in my office in Leeds, I was reminded of those words from “Julius Caesar”:
“Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once”.
There are many cowards around who have died inside, and Jo was the antithesis of that: she was full of life. She was passionate, she was intelligent and she was always generous. Her constituents, among whom I have spent the last few days, are unequivocal about that.
Jo said in her maiden speech that she was “made in Yorkshire” and went on to talk about manufacturing in Yorkshire. However, her credibility was not only that she was local, and that therefore people knew where she had grown up—her family still live there—but that she had travelled the world and engaged with issues, many of which we discuss but of which we have very little first-hand knowledge. If I want to hear about refugees, I prefer to hear someone who knows what they are talking about because they have been there. Jo Cox was certainly that.
Christians look through a resurrection-shaped lens called hope. Appalling though her death is, I want to pay tribute not only to her but to her constituents. Over the past weekend, they have had to engage with their own shock and grief and, in many cases, their anger. They have come together. Clergy have opened churches and mosques have been opened, and will continue to open, to create a common place where people can live with their emotions and responses and with their memories of Jo Cox, who was not only their MP but a daughter of their place.
We pray that Jo will rest in peace and that her family will find peace. I pray that Birstall will be remembered more for the manner of her living than for the manner of her dying. As we look to the future, from these Benches we say with confidence that death, violence and destruction cannot and will not have the final word. If we want to be the answer to our own prayers, as Psalm 23 makes clear, then we are the people who will be the rod and the staff that will enable her friends and her family to continue as life continues for them.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)
My Lords, the tragic death of my great friend Jo Cox is devastating. I send all my love to Brendan, their beloved children and her proud, devoted parents, Gordon and Jean.
Jo Leadbeater came to work for me in the European Parliament nearly 20 years ago, as my diary secretary. Within weeks, it was obvious that she was a hugely intelligent, effervescent young woman who was going to do much more than minister to my logistical needs. She seized on my passion for international development, democracy and women’s rights, and very rapidly became an innovator of thought and action. Our close and deep friendship was made then, and it has enriched my life ever since.
I was overjoyed when she had her lovely children and thrilled by her continual and earned successes, including of course her election to her native Batley and Spen last year. She has, as I anticipated, been an outstanding parliamentarian. When she left me for work with NGOs, her capacity for original thinking, practical deeds and team leadership showed that she was, as one of her colleagues said, a “pocket rocket”. For the internationalist cause of aid, development and justice, she worked throughout her life. She was a unique mixture of high intelligence, gaiety, bravery, energy and kindness, and she had an endless capacity for hard work. Her whole life was dedicated to her fellow human beings in her constituency, in Syria, in Africa and elsewhere where she could and did offer practical and useful compassion. She fought tirelessly on every front for justice and against prejudice and poverty.
Not only did Jo do nothing bad in her life but, much more importantly, she successfully strove always to do good. Happily, she was no saint. She was mischievous, merry and irreverent as well as focused, determined, resilient and brave. I feel cheated by the loss of this precious, valiant young woman. Our country and our world have been robbed of a unique talent, a glowing spirit of progress, enlightenment and emancipation. I cannot imagine what madness could have taken this truly wonderful young woman from us. It has punished goodness with badness and has left so many of us feeling emptiness. We must overcome that. Jo Cox would have said, “Don’t mourn. Work, organise and campaign for a better world”. I hope that we would, and will, heed her.
Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)
My Lords, Jo was beautiful inside and out. She was brave and bold. She was an extraordinary woman, as the world now knows, but she was also utterly normal, a working-class Yorkshire lass with a strong family. She was a mum who adored her children and put them first. She was a wife, a daughter, a sister and a friend. She understood the community that she served; it was her community. She had a fantastic capacity for connecting with people, no matter where they came from.
Jo was intrepid, feisty and fearless, whether climbing mountains—including when pregnant—working in countries torn apart by conflict or challenging authority. She was bright and intelligent, a tiny bundle of boundless energy whose enthusiasm for life was infectious. It is absolutely true that if you bumped into Jo during the day and had a quick hug, your day got better. Her life, so cruelly and tragically ended, was devoted to changing the world. Many of us say that we want to change the world but that is exactly what Jo did through her work for those fleeing war and hunger and with the poorest and dispossessed, and through her work as a Member of Parliament. She was a powerful advocate who gave a voice to the voiceless and fought passionately against injustice and for human rights. She was a great human being.
Jo loved this country but she was a real European and a citizen of the world, recognised by the World Economic Forum as a young global leader. The fact that on Wednesday, her 42nd birthday, events are being organised to celebrate her life in New York, Nairobi, Washington DC and Brussels, as well as in Batley and Spen and London, is testament to her global reach. She literally touched lives throughout the world.
In my book, Jo was the best sort of politician. She was Labour to the core and rooted in our values, but she understood that there are good people in most parties and that sometimes, in order to bring about real change, you have to reach out to those of a different political persuasion. She knew how to build bridges but also how to disagree in an agreeable way. Jo’s murder was a tragedy with a terrible and lasting impact on her family, but it was also an attack on our society and on democracy.
As an optimist, I hope and believe it will have a lasting effect on the way in which we do politics, and the way in which politicians are regarded by the public and the press. Public service should be celebrated. Politicians follow a noble profession at national and local level. Most do a great job, but too often they are undermined by the corrosion of cynicism and by a contempt that is dangerous and contagious. Someone wrote on the memorial to Jo in Parliament Square, “You can’t kill democracy”. We will not let that happen, but democracy is fragile. Our politicians are vulnerable and targets of hatred.
Jo’s life and her words were testament to the fact that there is more in our communities and in our country that unites us than divides us. The sight of the Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn laying wreaths at the memorial in Birstall gave a strong message of political unity. There are times for heated debate, but there are also times for us to stand together. Despite the fact that Jo worked in the most difficult and fragile parts of the world where the lives of human beings are degraded through poverty, hunger or conflict, she never ceased to love people and love life. She was generous in her friendship and had the widest circle of friends.
She was fun. I will remember Jo for many things, but my fondest memory is of an early evening last summer, sitting next to the River Wye round an open fire on which we cooked our dinner because summer at the cottage was the only way for the adventurous Cox family to cook. Her beautiful children were running around while Jo, her beloved Brendan and the other grown-ups put the fractured world to rights.
Westminster and the world will remember Jo in many ways. The tone of democracy, decency and tolerance were set by Brendan in the remarkable words that he crafted so soon after her vile murder. May that tone continue in our politics and our public life, and may Jo’s unquenchable spirit live on.
Baroness Thornton (Lab)
My 86 year-old Auntie Eileen was keen to assure me yesterday that she had voted for Jo Cox this week—what she meant was that she had voted remain, because Jo had advised her to do so. During the general election last year Jo Cox had talked to her and Eileen thought she was lovely. She voted for her and joined the rest of the world in her admiration for this Labour woman whom we all hope our politicians should be like.
I am rich in aunts, uncles and cousins who live in and around Batley and Spen, where I was born, where my parents were born and where my grandparents were born. My father was a Labour Party member in Birstall until he died last year—unfortunately before he could vote for Jo Cox. Like Jo Cox, I, too, am proud to have been made in Yorkshire.
I joined ordinary people to pay my respects to this amazing woman and her family in the Birstall town square yesterday. There was such a sense of deep sadness and loss, and in talking to people, they know the national and international significance of the political assassination of their local and much-loved MP. They are ordinary, decent Yorkshire folk who cannot believe that this has happened in their town. I was not sure whether I should speak today because, unlike others, I only knew and grew to admire Jo Cox in the last few years. But my family and friends said that a local Yorkshire voice should be heard in your Lordships’ House today, and I was to say that this is not what the people of Batley and Spen Valley are like. I was to say how terribly shocked they are at the waste of a lovely, warm, vibrant, effective, honest and special politician who had belonged to them. They wonder, like my Auntie Marie—I have a lot of aunties—who said to me yesterday, “What have we done to create a world where this can happen?”.
Lord Wood of Anfield (Lab)
My Lords, Jo was committed to bringing the voices of those outside the corridors of power inside its walls. In that spirit, I wanted this House today to hear from a few of those who do not work in Parliament but who knew Jo as a friend, a mum and a colleague, and wanted to pay tribute today.
From her schoolfriends, Louise Woolard and Heidi Toulson-Bennett:
“We have always known that Jo was special, and we are not surprised at how many people now know this. We loved you like a sister. You will be greatly missed, you funny, bright and wonderful girl”.
From Katie Dilks, a university friend:
“Jo was human. She had fears and she spoke about her fears, but she ensured that love triumphed over fear. Jo radiated love”.
From Simon and Jenny Bond, family friends of Jo and Brendan:
“We remember Jo on her wedding day tucking up her wedding dress to play football with the kids, running around the woods near their house, taking the kids on a night hike to spot badgers, cooking us nettle soup—her fingers still tingling because she couldn’t find the right gloves, dancing with us in the mud at a festival. She will leave a great hole in this world. Let it not be in vain”.
From her friend and office colleague Michelle Smyth:
“I’d go round the office tidying up after her, picking up bits of clothing, cycling gear, hair straighteners to put away. She was a stickler for making sure I blocked out time in the diary so she could be with the children. I’ll miss my friend so very much, but will always be inspired by her”.
From family friends Tomos Livingstone and his family:
“The last time we saw her, when we said a light-hearted farewell, she said this of motherhood: ‘I love creating moments of magic for them, it’s my favourite part of being a Mum’. And she did every single day. But, maybe without realising it, she did the same for every single person she met. She saw solutions not barriers, she attacked problems like a bank of nettles and blitzed them into soup”.
From her friend and Member of this House, currently on leave of absence, Shriti Vadera—my noble friend Lady Vadera:
“When so much has been written and said about her death, I hope people will remember Jo for her life. More than anyone I knew, Jo truly lived her values, not just espoused them. When I lose my way and my voice, as I often do, I hope the memory of Jo’s friendship and unwavering commitment to fight for a better world will strengthen me with some of her courage and optimism”.
Of the many messages from her houseboat neighbours at Hermitage Community Moorings, here is just one from her neighbour, Coco Zatorksi, aged seven:
“She is very special for her kindness and care, and will be remembered by everyone who knew her. Also people who heard about her. Her body is kindness and care”.
Lastly, another university friend, Jane Brady, said:
“Most of all Jo was a mum who deeply loved her children and wanted the world to be a better place for all children. The last time we spoke, she was very tired, the kids had been poorly and she wondered if she really was making a difference. I just want to say to her, ‘Look at the world now, Jo. The world is so much better for having had you in it’”.
Lord Smith of Finsbury (Non-Afl)
My Lords, it is almost impossible to express how devastated I am by what happened to Jo. Jo was a truly remarkable person: remarkable for the wonderful food that she and Brendan could produce in the tiny, cramped galley of their narrowboat; remarkable for their love of wild country on the borders of Wales or among their beloved Scottish mountains; and remarkable above all for the astonishing amount that she achieved in only a year as a Member of Parliament.
Jo will also be remembered as a remarkable, bright, energetic and highly respected student at Pembroke College, Cambridge, the college of which I am now the master. She was and is much loved by her fellow students and especially by those who taught her. Our students and fellows in recent weeks collected funds to support Syrian refugees. We will now make our collective donation in Jo’s name. In due course, we hope to establish a studentship in her memory for a refugee or for someone from a background like Jo’s who might otherwise find it difficult to come to Cambridge.
Jo stood for the politics of hope and love. She has been cruelly taken from us by fear and hate. There has been too much fear and hate in recent weeks, has there not? We must dedicate ourselves to continuing her work.
Baroness King of Bow (Lab)
I knew Jo because we both worked for the Kinnocks, for the Browns and for the Labour Women’s Network—which Jo chaired—and we both had a habit of ending up in refugee camps. In the run-up to Jo’s election as an MP, she told me that my diary of being an MP had nearly put her off. “The thing is,” she said, “my constituency could never cause me as much grief as yours”. This is the only thing Jo was wrong about.
Jo has suffered more than any one of us in Parliament. Jo has given more than any one of us in Parliament. Therefore, Jo now represents more than any one of us in Parliament. She represents civilisation in much the same way as her murderer represents barbarism. Glenys—my noble friend Lady Kinnock—told us that Jo was no saint but let me tell you why she was an angel. She is one of a tiny percentage of the world’s population, a truly infinitesimally small percentage, who genuinely care about other people’s children as much as they care for their own and then act on that.
Apart from being an angel, Jo was also a proper policy person. She would want us to be talking about the policies as much as the personality. Because she was an angel, she would most likely be the first to point out that we must not just rage against her murderer. We must seek to understand what leads an isolated, mentally ill man to kill. What is it that whipped him up into a frenzy? Who is it who whipped him up into a frenzy, because it was not Jo? Or did all of us whip him into a frenzy? Was it Britain’s public discourse that whipped him into a frenzy? Then our cultural discourse must change and that must be Jo’s legacy—a kinder, more tolerant Britain.
In that kinder Britain, one of the first questions must be: just how many isolated and mentally ill people are there among us? Which policy failures have contributed to their plight? Why are those isolated mentally ill people not our priority, rather than our afterthought? Why are we not heeding the police when they say that the single biggest factor shared by extremists who carry out terror attacks, whether Islamic extremists or white British nationalists, is untreated mental health issues? Jo would ask why our mental health services are Cinderella services—in fact, she asked that in Parliament. Another question that she always asked was why poorer communities in general and refugees in particular are always the ones to pay the highest price.
A few weeks ago, speaking in favour of the amendment in the name of my noble friend Lord Dubs on refugee children, Jo said:
“Syrian families are being forced to make an impossible decision: stay and face starvation, rape, persecution and death, or make a perilous journey to find sanctuary … Who can blame desperate parents for wanting to escape the horror … Children are being killed on their way to school … I know I would risk life and limb to get my two precious babies out of that hellhole”.
It is hard to think about Jo’s two precious babies today, even if they have an extraordinary family and a father, Brendan, who radiates love and is surely the most dignified man in Britain. Jo concluded:
“Any Member who has seen the desperation and fear on the faces of children trapped in … camps across Europe must surely feel compelled to act. I urge them … to be brave and bold”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/4/16; cols. 1234-35.]
That is what Jo said and that is how I conclude this tribute to her. I urge everyone who contributes to Britain’s public discourse to be brave and bold—bold enough to be kind and brave enough to be tolerant. I ask parliamentarians to transcribe Jo’s kindness into legislation, because that is how we drain the hate that killed her. Tragedy brings focus. Jo represents us now in a way that others do not. Jo’s words mean even more now and, unless we heed the tone of her words, her life could have been lost in vain. Not just for the sake of Jo but for the sake of British democracy, that can never be.
Baroness Nye (Lab)
My Lords, Jo Cox was proud to be a member of the Labour Party and that Labour family is proud of her. There are some people in families, as well as in political parties, whom you try to dodge, but Jo was someone who improved your day. She was a passionate believer in the power of good and many dark corners of the world have lost a passionate human rights defender. So many people have lost a woman who was a joy and an inspiration to work with—people who worked with her for nearly two decades here in Parliament, in our own Parliamentary Labour Party offices, in party headquarters and in party offices up and down the country. Even before she became an MP, her many friends in former leaders’ offices—in Tony Blair’s and Ed Miliband’s—as well as my friends and former colleagues in Gordon Brown’s office, valued her insight and compassion, not least in the work that she did with Sarah Brown on women’s health. They are all part of this tribute to Jo, who loved life, her country, her world and, most of all, her family. I met Brendan when he was a Labour student. Over this awful time, he has shown himself to be so brave and so strong. We mourn their loss, but he and her family should know that all of us are absolutely and resolutely united and determined to counter the hate that killed Jo and to prove that hope beats hate.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington (Con)
My Lords, I did not know Jo very well, and of course I had every expectation and hope that I would get to know her better and would work more closely with her in the months and years ahead.
She came to see me some three years ago, as chair of Labour Women’s Network, to talk about an idea that she had had for a women’s think tank. We discussed what it might look like and, of course, we roamed on to other issues such as international development, women in Parliament and other passions. I assumed that, given her charm and energy, the think tank would go ahead. But it was not to be because, a few months later, she was selected and then elected, and the think tank was put on the back burner. It may be something that we should ponder again.
She came to see me about a year ago with a friend. The friend was a Conservative who wanted to be a woman Member of Parliament. Not all Members are so generous as to share their friends with other parties. Indeed, Jo was a living embodiment of how, as she said, we have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.
Initially, I was concerned that this terrible, tragic death would put women off coming forward, but in fact I wonder whether that is the case. I hope that perhaps her passion, inspiration and compassion will encourage women who have what it takes, including resilience, to come forward. There could be no better tribute to her than if they do.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, Jo Cox was my MP. She was savagely attacked and murdered on a street just yards from the marketplace where we were due to meet that very afternoon to campaign together on an issue about which we both cared passionately: Europe. It was not to be.
Jo had strongly held, principled views. She was willing to work with all those who would help to make a difference. Following her murder, there has been an outpouring of love for Jo. The floral tributes placed in the marketplace grow daily. Yesterday, more than 100 came in just one hour. The messages speak of real help given, concerns listened to and anxieties lightened.
People in her constituency of Batley and Spen knew who she was. Jo, in her too-brief time as our MP, visited countless schools, community groups and businesses. Everywhere she went, she gave support and encouragement. “Be ambitious: yes, you can” was her mantra. “Keep positive. Be hopeful”.
The evening she died, the local church in Birstall held a vigil. The church was packed; it was literally standing room only. Those who came included people of all faiths and none: Christians, Muslims and Sikhs mourning together.
The following day, I had reason to walk into Birstall. In Yorkshire, when you meet someone in the street, you say hello. That day, the mood was heavy and sombre. Nobody wanted to speak, so there were no words. But there was an understanding that what had happened to Jo was a tragedy beyond words: an awful, barbaric attack which left a huge, overwhelming sense of the loss of a special person whose life had been so brutally cut short. And, yes, a sense of anger that our democracy had been violently besmirched.
I was speaking to some young people yesterday. Jo had been to their school several times. At first they said that no one was interested in politics because it was pointless, but not any more. Jo had enthused many, especially girls, to see what can be achieved through political campaigning.
We in Batley and Spen have lost a remarkable MP. The country has lost a spirited advocate for the poor and dispossessed wherever they live. Her family has lost the person they love. We are all the poorer for her passing.
Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon (LD)
My Lords, Jo Cox erupted—there is no other way to describe it—into the inbox of my email account about six months ago. The voice was demanding not to be ignored and, as I soon discovered, not to be resisted either. She demanded that I work with her to help identify the cause of the starving in the besieged cities of Syria. I met with her, and how on earth could I conceivably resist? I was very privileged to work with her for some months to try to bring the issue to public attention. I have to say that she did the work rather than me and she could write extremely well. Due to her energy and commitment, I think we began to move the public debate.
The last email I had from her arrived on 28 May, three weeks ago. In typical Jo fashion she wrote saying, “Paddy, sorry to disturb your bank holiday weekend. I hope you are getting something of a break. Please will you sign the attached statement?”. So, of course I did and I wrote back to her saying, “You are wonderful, Jo. Thanks. Yes, that is fine. I am so involved in the referendum that I have little time for anything else. Fortunately, we and the starving in Syria have you”. But we do not any longer, and that cause is hugely diminished. In characteristic Jo style she wrote back to me saying, “Thank you, Paddy. Keep up the good work. Jo. X”. What else would you expect from her?
The last time I met her, we talked a little about the starving in Syrian cities and about how we could make politics more sensible and deliver on her passion expressed in her maiden speech to celebrate diversity. I quoted a poem which I have by heart from Rabindranath Tagore. She insisted that I send it to her because she was deeply moved by it. I have to confess that I forgot, so I shall quote it now. It sums up the value of a life, as others have said, cut tragically too short but nevertheless lived extraordinarily well. The poem goes like this:
We are all the more one, because we are many,
for we have left an ample space for love in the gap where we were sundered.
Our unlikeness shines with the radiance of a common creation,
like mountain peaks in the morning sun.
Those were the values for which Jo lived her life and they are the values for which perhaps she may have died. If we are able to do our best to live to those values, our politics will be better, our nation more successful and our civilisation, I believe, far more secure.
Lord Kinnock (Lab)
My Lords, I express my gratitude and that of my colleagues for the tributes that have come from all sides of the House to Jo Cox, and say also to those who have not voiced their sympathy this afternoon that we do understand that it is none the less deeply and sincerely felt.
For 20 years I knew and cherished Jo Cox as a friend and as a young woman of great personal and political vivaciousness. In life she was brilliant in all respects and her death was appalling in its ugly brutality and dreadful injustice. As I reeled from horrified shock at hearing what had happened to Jo, I confess that I felt misery mixed with hatred: hatred for whoever had terrified and killed her; hatred for the times and the conditions which had made someone feel that they were justified in being brutally extreme. Then I realised that my outrage was useless. Not for the first time I recognised that hate cannot be beaten with hatred. Jo Cox would have said, “Do not hate in my name”. She might even have quoted Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. Then she would have offered a brave, rational response to the malicious incoherence of an environment in which a minority of people think they can write, speak and do violence to anyone if they have the excuse of enthusiasm, offence, partisanship, or even a warped form of patriotism.
Jo’s response would not have lacked passion. She was pragmatic in order to get things done, but never cold nor clinical. This spirited woman would have centred on realism and been driven by rationality. She would have pursued the cause of the rage and then put bold ideas into action to counter it. We know that, because that is what she always did when confronted by inhumanity, bigotry, injustice or simply by the needs of her constituents. Now we who are part of the reasonable majority must employ truth against divisive fiction and distortion; reality against prejudice; hard-headed common sense against delusion. We have to combat hatred in its lethal public forms, in the bilious preaching of demagogues, in the sly dog-whistles of populists, and when it oozes as a cowardly, anonymous social media secretion.
Impressionable, maladjusted individuals may claim that their responsibility is diminished; politicians and newspapers with voices that shape views may not. We have to fight hatred that is incited and nourished by those whose purposes are served by fostering fear—fear of change, fear of insecurity and fear of foreigners. That is our duty, not simply to ourselves but to our democracy and the British people’s sense of decency. We cannot allow venom to displace mutual respect. We cannot permit intolerance to intimidate tolerance. We cannot accept that a convention of hating can ever be allowed to prevail over the greatest, strongest, most civilised British quality of live and let live.
History teaches in too many lessons that if temperate rationality concedes ground, the space is invaded by intemperate irrationality, always with horrific results. That is why we and all who recoil from the politics of hate must never make that concession. We must never stop confronting those who seek political profit from encouraging the neuroses of threat and resentment. Young Jo Cox did not concede. That is why her short life was so productive, so radiant. It deserves to be unforgotten because it was unforgettable.