Legacy of Jo Cox

Jim McMahon Excerpts

Thursday 11th June 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jim McMahon (Oldham West, Chadderton and Royton) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the reflections of my hon. Friend the Member for Neath and Swansea East (Carolyn Harris). It is in the nature of this place that, when called to rise to the moment, the House does so. I think that that has been reflected across the Chamber today.

We often say that we should be more like Jo; it has become part of our common exchanges. However, I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) that I would like to be a bit more like Kim. She stewarded a very testing private Member’s Bill on a matter that was so profound and made us all think about those final moments when our time comes to an end, and she created a safe political space for all views on such a sensitive issue to be reflected. She does not just say the words; she embodies them. I really appreciate that and thank my hon. Friend for it.

Jo’s words really matter to us because they challenge us to be better. All of us come into politics because we have a desire to change the bit of the world we care about and feel connected to—our community, our town, our borough, our city—which we know can be so much better and often feel is held back from realising its potential. We come here to try to make a difference. This is a fairly odd place, let us be honest, with its quirk and its custom, and I think at times we do not always credit ourselves for the amount of work that goes on cross-party, when we pull together. That common interest—Members of all parties really care about and, I would say, love the place they represent—drives most of us in politics. Perhaps if we displayed that a bit more, we would build more trust in politics and its ability to make a difference. Jo’s words, 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.]

are not just an anchor; they must be a challenge to all of us.

Sometimes we can meet that challenge through small acts of kindness such as saying hello to somebody walking down the corridor; they do not always have to be big gestures. If somebody is sitting at a table in the Tea Room by themselves, we should pull up a chair and join them. If a Member is feeling under pressure in their constituency—we all feel that, and try to get through it and keep our own house in order—reaching out to them and saying, “Do you know what, I saw what was going on in your town or city and I was thinking about you” goes a long way in recognising that we are not isolated. When we come down here to London, many of us are away from our support networks: our families who love us are not there when we go back to our accommodation at night. The people we rely on are generally the people in this place and sometimes that bit of decency means a great deal.

When I eventually move on to a different place, I will reflect on my time in Parliament. Of course I will think—hopefully—about the big things that I was able to achieve with the special privilege of being an MP, but I will also reflect on those small moments of kindness that made me realise why I got into politics to begin with. I think we can all do those things a bit more.

I came into Parliament on a by-election. By-elections are, as a number of Members will know, very weird things. You are caught in the storm of the noise of hundreds of thousands of people descending on your town—my thoughts are with the people of Makerfield at this time. I was going to say that it is a circus, but that does not quite do it justice. It is inspiring that so many people rally to get you over the line, but of course you soon realise that you were a mere legal necessity—a name required on the ballot paper. You arrive here among your new friends, and you wonder where your locker is, how to get your IT to work and so on. Jo was one of a number of people who reached out to me as a by-election candidate. She invited me to the party on the houseboat to make me feel a part of the 2015 intake. That is who she was. She did not know me any more than anybody else did in this place. I had not met her before, but she made an effort to reach out. I cannot say just how much that meant to me, when I came here. I see friends in the Chamber who did the same and I hope they feel that at times I have repaid that. Being a good person in this place goes a long way.

The reason why “more in common” strikes a note today is that it should endure. It feels self-evident: of course, we have more in common. Whatever troubles we have in our country, in the place we call home, our futures are bound together. What else have we got in common if not that shared endeavour and the future for ourselves and our families? In politics, that feels more contested today than it has ever been before. That is not because we have less in common, but because a lot of the political debate is consumed by what differences there are and what divides us. Too often, our politics encourages us to see what separates us before we see what binds us together. At times, those who take a different view are treated as not simply having a different perspective, experience, or background—simply coming at an issue from a different way—but as wrong and somehow lesser.

Jo understood that politics involved disagreement. She would never have pretended that there were not difficult issues to confront, but she also understood that words matter, and that those in positions of influence have a responsibility not merely to represent divisions in society but to lead people through them. Many Members in this place, as well as our mayors and our councillors, will have experiences that illustrate just how toxic parts of our political environment have become.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

I am sorry not to have known Jo, because she seems like someone who I would have got on incredibly well with. I am delighted that I have got to know her sister, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater), and that we have worked cross-party on a number of issues. I know that Jo would have campaigned on similar issues, such as violence against women and girls. Recently, we had some awful protests in Epsom; they were about women’s safety, but they were hijacked by the far-right. Rather than being peaceful, the protests were violent and protesters attacked a property that housed vulnerable adults. They were trying to find immigrants. Does the hon. Member agree that today more than ever we must come together? As he mentioned, we need to discuss and debate the differences that we have, and if we protest we must do so peacefully, because we absolutely do have more in common than that which divides us.

[Jim McMahon]

I will come on to social media and the way that division is amplified and monetised, and how bad behaviour is often rewarded more than being a good citizen in that debate.

I am proud of our country and believe that the vast majority in this country are decent, hard-working people who want the best for themselves and their neighbours, whatever their background, race or religion. However, we have to look in the mirror collectively, as a country, and ask what has taken us to the point where an attack that all of us see as horrific, which has played out in Belfast over the last couple of days, could in any way justify the scenes of a family—women and children—running away from their house, which has been left in flames and smoke. That is where division has got us. How can we find ourselves in a situation where a woman fleeing war in Ukraine who has been homed in Belfast, finds her house being attacked, while violent protesters are egged on from Russia?

We have to reflect on the fact that cohesion does not happen by accident. People do not come together unless there is leadership that brings them together. Maybe we all need to be a bit more determined in calling out what is in plain sight. We must also accept that it has been a characteristic of politics in Britain since the EU referendum. At that moment, something changed. Being online has of course made it worse; the way that those divisions are exploited, and how extremism now has a platform that it did not have in the mainstream before, is all part of that.

I am not convinced that mainstream politics is adequately responding to the scale of the challenge that is in front of us. I do not feel that we have the regulations. At some point—my god!—Ofcom might realise that it is a regulator, and then who knows what it could achieve. We must ask whether the architecture is in place to deal with the scale of the challenge.

As we see homes set on fire, businesses damaged and people attacked, I would say that this is a national emergency. In a civil emergency, we would respond as a nation and a Government in a more determined way than we have seen. I fear that the power being held by a handful of very wealthy, powerful, connected individuals, who control our social media in the way that the old media was controlled by the wealthy and powerful for vested interests, is almost placing the Government into a position of fear—fear of the response if they take action. These things are not easy, but taking no action —or cautious action—is not rising to the challenge ahead.

I have three reflections on where we find ourselves. First, every elected representative has a responsibility not just to challenge views they disagree with but to build bridges across political differences and seek common ground wherever it can be found. We are elected to represent whole communities, not factions of communities. We should lead by example in the tone we set, the respect we show, and the openness with which we are willing to engage. That is not always easy—political disagreements are deeply felt—but little can be achieved without it.

Secondly, I continue to believe—although this is tested on a regular basis—that social media can be a force for good. It offers opportunities to connect people, to learn to organise, and to bring people together around shared interests and common causes. In fact, we all use it in this House—there is no one here who is not on one social media platform or another for those reasons. I do not begin by looking at social media from a point of cynicism about the technology itself. We have got to be honest about social media’s flaws, however, because too often the incentives that are built into platforms reward outrage over understanding, division over dialogue, and conflict over compromise. In many respects, previous generations could have barely understood the scale and pace of that, but the Government have to recognise and step up to the scale of the challenge.

Thirdly, we have to address the underlying tensions that drive fear, anxiety and anger. Where people feel insecure in their jobs, worried about their family’s future, unable to access housing, or disconnected from the opportunities available elsewhere, those concerns cannot simply be dismissed or ignored. We must respond with great urgency to the conditions that people feel, particularly when they say that they are unheard and feel left behind.

Alongside all that, we have to recognise that social cohesion is not a passive state. It does not happen by accident. It requires effort, compromise, and a willingness to listen, understand and sometimes disagree without condemning, rather than everything being a culture war or about identity, where the winners of the argument are those who can shout loudest, not those who can convince. That was the lesson that Jo Cox tried to teach us, and it remains as important today as when she first said it.

For some, those concerns might sound abstract. Quite often, we talk around the houses about social media regulation and its impact, but in a town such as Oldham, where we are now 25 years on from the Oldham riots, we know the cost when communities are torn apart and division is normalised. We know the cost when people live completely separate lives, not interacting in communities, the education system, the housing system or even in the economy; where the opportunities to meet people from a different background are the exception, not the rule; where people self-select to live a separate life, because it is easier and maybe more secure than making the effort to reach out and build bridges across different communities.

[Iqbal Mohamed]

To highlight the hon. Gentleman’s point, after the murder of Mr Nowak, Tommy Robinson said:

“The whole system is set against white people. And it must be smashed!”

In recent days, Musk has reposted messages claiming that the British Prime Minister hates white people and “millions must go”. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is the language of incitement to hatred and violence, and that wherever it is possible for our law to reach, the Government and law enforcement agencies must tackle that behaviour with the strongest force of the law?

[Jim McMahon]

It is clear that extremists will capitalise on the anxiety, fear and frustration that people feel in the country, and on the everyday problems they face. People are facing difficult circumstances now when trying to get a house that is affordable and secure, keep a job that can provide a good standard of living for themselves and their family, and feel safe in the community they call home where they are raising their kids—those are real issues that people face—and it is the oldest trick in the book to blame thy neighbour rather than the real cause of the problem.

I remember doing a kind of test at secondary school— I am not sure whether this is still done—in which the classroom was divided by the eye colour of the children in the class, with the blue-eyed kids on one side and the brown-eyed kids on the other. I was on the side with the blue eyes. We were given a handful of sweets to share among ourselves—a much bigger group of kids—while the brown-eyed kids were given a big bowl of sweets. There was more than enough for everybody in that group—they were stuffing their face and enjoying themselves. Within seconds, we had stopped looking at where the bigger bowl of sweets had gone and started squabbling among ourselves over the few sweets left on the table. Of course, the message was that when people are left to fight for scarce resource, they fight the person nearest to them, who is trying to fight for the same resource; the lesson was to look where the resource had been taken before it got anywhere near our table.

I say that because in a town like Oldham, people from every background are working hard, but there are not enough sweets to go around the community to give people a good standard of living and to make them feel safe in the communities where they live. I hear it from the white community and I hear it from the Muslim community. I hear it from people from every background, because we are all part of the same place, with the same hopes, fears and concerns about the future. It poses a real question for the Government about the economy and the fact that the wealth that we are creating is not being fairly distributed among society. The workers who are creating that wealth are fighting for scarce resource in a society that is, frankly, still setting working people against other working people.

The fact that race, religion or however many generations someone happens to have been British are dividing lines in an argument makes me really fearful. When it comes to matters of asylum and refugees, my town has a strong history of supporting people fleeing persecution. I have always thought that when looking into the eyes of a child in such a situation, we must think to ourselves: there but for the grace of God go I. If that was my child, what would I want as a response to protect the child I love? I expect our country to provide what it would for my child for children who are fleeing war.

Let us be honest, though: our asylum and immigration system is not working for people who are fleeing war and persecution any more than it is for anybody else. We have to get a grip of the system. It can be a bit too easy in politics to talk firm without outlining what is fair. We need to make sure that there is balance and equity in that debate. If we do not, those divisions will be exploited.

Oldham has had to literally rebuild itself and its community from the ashes of riots in which the town set itself on fire. Looking at our history, I think we can be a bit too complacent in our assumption that the malign forces might suddenly go away and we can regulate the online world better and sort out the algorithms.

By the way, we should not allow Members of Parliament to be paid by platforms for their insightful posts. Parliamentarians should, of course, post on social media, but they should post in the public interest. They should not be doing so for the financial kickback they get. I do not know whether this is the case, but they certainly should not be using paid parliamentary staff to post content online in order, ultimately, to get paid a fee through the back door on these platforms. We should all be driven by public service and by wanting to represent our constituents.

What we learned in Oldham was that every politician in every party has to take responsibility. It is the one thing that I feel we have lost in some of this debate.

I also want to reflect on David Amess. We are here reflecting on a decade passing since Jo passed away, but many of us were also affected by David being killed in his advice surgery.

My final words are not for the people in this Chamber—we speak about ourselves quite a lot. Instead, I want to thank the families of Members of Parliament for allowing their loved ones to serve in politics. I am sure that when Members set off on a Monday morning to head to this place, or when they go out on a Thursday or Friday or on the weekend in their constituencies, there will be times when their family members wonder whether the person they love will return. Our politics have to be better than that, but we should not underestimate what families who support MPs offer.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali]

I thank the Minister, who knew Jo very well—much better than I did. We experience that loss deeply, but I am heartened by the work that my hon. Friend and others across this House, including in other parties, continue to do in Jo’s memory.

We must never forget that Jo was murdered by a far-right terrorist who believed in white supremacy and was obsessed with fascist and far-right groups. She was a target because she stood for everything that the far-right hates: community, understanding, compassion, love. The sad truth is that there is more anger, hostility and hate a decade on in our country. There is more disinformation, more lies, more racism, more misogyny and more hate. There are more people making money from sowing discord—monetised hatred made possible by social media algorithms and pernicious AI fakery. Deepfake content and disinformation are infecting our online space and spilling over into hate, hostility and violence on our streets. Online hate, with its real-life consequences, has cost us dearly.

[Jim McMahon]

In her parliamentary career, my hon. Friend has dealt with a lot of hostility and a lot of hostile actions from malign forces, and she has always risen above it. However, she should not have had to—the system should have been there to step in and intervene sooner. We talk about social media on one side, but we also need to reflect on the police. Police forces in different parts of the country approach this very differently, but I think there are two main issues. First, does my hon. Friend agree that they just think that this is all politics and they just accept it as par for the course, when it ought not to be? Secondly, they have not quite understood that online is on-street too, and that these are same people, creating the same content and making the same threats.

[Rushanara Ali]

What my hon. Friend says highlights the fact that when some of us entered politics—I did so in 2010—we were outliers in the hostility and harassment that parliamentarians and candidates experienced. Sadly, that is becoming increasingly mainstream. My hon. Friend has also experienced threats and intimidation. It is staggering that our system is still not fit enough to deal with those threats systematically.

One of my greatest fears is that, despite the tragedy of what has happened, lessons have not been learnt fast enough. If they had, perhaps we would not have seen further fatalities and the loss of another dear colleague, Sir David Amess. I, and I know others, do not want to see the day when yet another elected representative—a Member serving our public—finds themselves under attack. Too many have been under attack.

We must redouble our efforts to protect our democracy, and that means protecting those who stand for public office. Too many are being put off. Too many—particularly women and particularly those of colour—are being targeted and being driven from the public square and out of frontline politics because the price paid for being in politics has become increasingly difficult and costly. It is costly when it takes the form of losing our colleagues. Frankly, in the 21st century, in this democracy, I never thought that would happen.

I never thought that, and I do not think any others who came into politics at that time could have imagined a situation where our politics could have descended into the spectre of losing a dear colleague from our party and then, again, another colleague from the Conservative party. And we must not forget the far-right extremist, radicalised on the internet, who attacked my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms) in 2010. Thankfully, he survived and is providing a great service to our nation as a Minister, but that should have raised the alarm bells then, because a number of us were on that person’s target list.

As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) mentioned, in the past we have seen assassinations in our country. Now, however, the online space is creating an even greater threat. That is why we must ensure that Members of Parliament do not have to live with the fear of threats against their families, those who are close to them and their staff. Too many mistakes have been made, and we must ensure that we really do learn from them if we are to protect our democracy.