Legacy of Jo Cox

Yvette Cooper Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper (Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford) (Lab)]

Jo was a friend and a fantastic west Yorkshire MP colleague, and it is such an honour to have Kim now as our west Yorkshire neighbour. Jo’s “More in Common” values are also the values that Kim and her family have championed so much, and we pay tribute to them too, in west Yorkshire and throughout the country.

[Neil Coyle]

Thank you; well said.

Across the country, some 20 million people have now been involved in Great Get Togethers, which is a testament to the positivity that Jo helped to inculcate. Even in this covid crisis, in June more than 1 million people participated in a socially distanced Get Together.

There are of course issues that Jo would have still been championing today, and that we need to step up on in her name and in all our interests. The rise in online hate and extremism continues in the UK as elsewhere. As the former chair of the all-party parliamentary group on counter-extremism, I am very aware of the alarming statistics on the growth of Prevent referrals about far-right groups. In the most recent year for which statistics are available, 105,000 hate crimes were recorded by the police, an 8% increase on the previous year. Our focus must be on tackling division and hatred, wherever it comes from—including anti-Muslim prejudice and the startling rise in antisemitism, a feature of both far-left and far-right groups.

I cannot fail to mention Afghanistan today, as I think Jo would have been campaigning against the abandonment of UK promises to the women and girls now left subject to Taliban rule. Jo would have been highlighting the refugee crisis created by the collapse of the democratically elected Government, and the need for our Government to deliver more to help neighbouring states, but also to assist more Afghans who worked for our country to reach the UK and escape harm.

I am mindful that our country’s Afghan failure follows the aid budget cut and the abolition of the Department for International Development. Jo, along with the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral South, wrote an excellent piece called “The Cost of Doing Nothing”, which remains valid, and on which I am sure both those Members will speak today. It makes me nervous that the UK looked decidedly isolated internationally, with the US ignoring us and the suggestion from the Foreign Office in March that an alternative alliance could be built to replace American forces ultimately leading to nothing but our scrambled exit and capitulation to the Taliban.

However, the purpose of this debate was to be positive. Before I sit down, I want to pay some personal respects to people who have shone an amazing beacon through some very dark times. Through the Great Get Together events, I have met the Batley Way bike riders who cycle down all the way from Yorkshire to Flat Iron Square in my constituency, where they finish their bike ride with a pint, and they are met by Jo and Kim’s parents, Gordon and Jean. We have all seen Gordon and Jean interviewed, and observed their amazing spirit. They are two of Britain’s finest, and I am very pleased to see them here today. You are the best of us, and it is a pleasure to have got to know you both. Your contribution to this place is two wonderful, special people, and through them and their service you have improved our country and provided opportunities the world over. Thank you for sharing them with us.

A great many Members want to speak, and I am really looking forward to hearing their contributions. I thank everyone for being here and marking this anniversary, and the positive legacy of Jo Cox.