Legacy of Jo Cox

Debate between Caroline Nokes and Sarah Smith

Thursday 11th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

It is an incredible honour to speak today in this debate on the life and legacy of Jo Cox, and particularly challenging to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes Central (Emily Darlington) and her incredibly moving words. It just makes those of us who were not Jo’s best friends incredibly jealous. We all can recognise that close sisterhood that we have with our closest friends. Like everyone else, I put on record my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) not just for securing today’s debate, but for the amazing, wonderful sister that she is. I thank her for how she has welcomed in later intakes of MPs and, as somebody who came to the House in 2024, the latest intake of MPs in particular.

Legacy is often a concept that it is hard to distinguish, but with Jo, her legacy is tangible because of how she chose to conduct herself and lead her life. It has had a lasting impact not just on this place, as we have heard today, but in our communities up and down the country and around the globe. I will never forget the first constituency Labour party event I attended. Fortunately, it was not a CLP meeting on a Friday night, because perhaps I would not have gone back. [Laughter.] It was an event for women that Jo hosted on her boat before she was elected. True to who she was, it provided an inclusive, empowering and welcoming space for women like me who were just seeking to understand how we could bring change to our communities. Today, more than ever, we need to be the change by creating those spaces, when so much in the political discourse is desperately seeking to intimidate and put off women and minority groups.

Jo lived by the words she expressed in her maiden speech that we have heard so often today, 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. 675.]

It can be hard to hold on to that truth, given the division and vitriol we have seen expressed on our streets, in our media and online, but hold on to it we must as forces seek to polarise us further away from each other in a most un-British way.

Like Jo’s constituency of Batley and Spen, Hyndburn is a diverse community with a significant number of people who come from, or who still have connections with, Kashmir. It is made up of a number of towns, but it is a place where people often feel ignored and forgotten, and where the simple blaming of others can be a tempting answer to the far more complex questions that we know our society faces. In many ways we are more connected than we have ever been but, just as profoundly, we are more disconnected than ever before. An Office for National Statistics survey in 2025 found that about 40% of 16 to 29-year-olds have felt lonely at times—and that is while they supposedly have the world in their back pockets or in their hands.

I believe that the sense of feeling alone has increased. For connection to bring people together, heal mistrust, clean up untruths, and identify the commonalities and common purpose between people and groups, it must be grounded in relationships, which the online world does not enable well. People hide behind a keyboard or anonymity and say things that cause a huge amount of hurt and harm, while bots and algorithms push misinformation and disinformation, with no regard for facts. Owing to the growth of social media, everyone can now be publishers; we can share our opinions from behind a keyboard, even opinions that we do not truly believe. With the development of AI, we can also all be producers. However, unity and authentic cohesion are built on listening, engaging, breaking bread together and enjoying being with each other. Much of how we communicate and trust our fellow human beings is by being there in person and showing up, to understand our differences and find our common ground.

As MPs, we all know that community can and will be messy, but it is wonderfully messy, as people from all walks of life come together and find out that, against all the evidence to the contrary—perpetuated online and through the media—our hopes, values and convictions are often similar, if not just the same. Community is where disagreements can be resolved through respectful dialogue. A healthy society and democracy depend on our ability to bridge differences, find common ground and move forward together rather than apart, but too often we see disagreements framed as moral conflicts that demand that people choose sides—all or nothing. This kind of polarisation pushes us into opposing camps, and makes it harder to recognise our shared values and aspirations.

A recent report by Hope not Hate found that the far right is seeking to engage young people, particularly boys and young men, by using platform algorithms to guide them towards increasingly insular spaces where extremist views are reinforced and intensified. The same approach exists on the far left, often targeting young women and girls. This is perpetuating a sense of polarisation on moral grounds, and targeting people who are actually just desperate for a sense of belonging and an understanding of this world. Online harm is a real threat, with nearly three quarters of my constituents recognising that boys and girls are being subjected to different forms of online harm. Tech companies must do more to protect our young people and our older people, and I urge the Government to be bold and brave in making sure that they do what is required of them, both morally and legally.

Since I became an MP, I have been supporting my constituent Debbie Duncan following the tragic death of her son Jay while he was on holiday in Tenerife. Since those heartbreaking events, Debbie has been hounded by what we have termed “tragedy trollers”—content creators seeking to capitalise on her grief by promoting disinformation, conspiracy theories and actual threats of violence. This has caused harm while Debbie has been navigating the worst nightmare that any parent can face. We must tackle the assumption that anyone is fair game online, especially those serving in public life, but Debbie did not ask for any public attention, let alone the limelight. She is now bravely campaigning for action to be taken against the trolls and the platforms to ensure that no family have to face this sort of abuse at the worst moment of their lives.

My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley and Jo’s wider family also faced that type of abuse following Jo’s death. It is unforgivable and morally indefensible. I hope that the Government will take action on this and the wider issue of misinformation, because the risk that the rise in misinformation poses to our communities and to our democracy cannot be ignored. We must all choose to confront the climate of hostility, division and malevolence that allows this online practice to fester, which also falsely claims to offer our young people a sense of belonging or empowerment.

If there is a key lesson we can take from Jo’s life, and there are of course many, it is that hope is not passive. It is something we build through action, service and our commitment to one another. At a time when forces seek to divide us, we must honour her legacy not simply by remembering her words, but by living them—choosing dialogue over hostility, community over isolation and common purpose over division. She believed that a fairer, kinder, more tolerant world was possible, and the most fitting tribute is to ensure that both our words and our actions take us closer to that reality.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

That brings us to the Front-Bench winding-up speeches.