On 23 June, the British public will be asked to cast their vote in a referendum that has been described as the most important collective decision in a generation: whether to remain in or leave the European Union. The prospect of such a choice has revealed a deeply divided nation.
But if only for a short while, those differences were cast aside when politicians of all stripes returned to Parliament to pay tribute to British MP Jo Cox, who was murdered last week.
Many of the tributes were personal. Colleagues described her as a doting mother, a loving wife, a “comet” full of energy, passionate about everything from mountain climbing to cycling.
Every tribute referred to her as a woman of conviction, someone who worked tirelessly to help other people. “She could have done anything with her life, but she chose to spend it with others, making the world a better place,” Eilidh Whiteford, a Scottish National Party MP, said when she addressed Parliament.
For one MP and former employee of the World Economic Forum, Stephen Kinnock – a close colleague and long-term friend of Cox – it was precisely because of these qualities that she was killed. “She was assassinated because of what she was, because of what she stood for.”
What was it she stood for? “Compassion, community, solidarity and internationalism,” Kinnock explained in his emotional tribute. The complete opposite of the “poison that has seeped into British politics” and killed her.
Because, far from being the act of an unstable loner, her death, Kinnock argued, was the direct result of this divisiveness and fear that seems to have swept across Britain – no better exemplified than by the controversial UKIP poster unveiled on the day she died.
“Jo understood that rhetoric has consequences. When insecurity, fear and anger are used to light a fuse, then an explosion is inevitable,” Kinnock said. “I can only imagine Jo’s reaction had she seen the poster unveiled hours before her death. A poster on the streets of Britain that demonizes hundreds of desperate refugees, including hungry, terrified children fleeing from the terror of ISIS and Russian bombs. She would have responded with outrage.”
But his message was one of hope: that her death would not be in vain, that it would help build a new type of politics. “Out of the deep darkness of Jo’s death must now come the shining light of her legacy. Let us build a politics of hope, not fear; respect, not hate; unity, not division.”
To honour the death of the “proud Yorkshire lass who dedicated her life to the common good” Kinnock called for a new kind of politics: “We must stand up for something better, because of someone better.”
Jo Cox was a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Here, two of her YGL colleagues remember her.
