Legacy of Jo Cox
Debate between Jess Phillips and Kim Leadbeater(2 days, 8 hours ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kim Leadbeater
I thank my hon. Friend for his most marvellous intervention, and for wearing a beautiful coloured tie, which perfectly co-ordinates with the Jo Cox Foundation logo. He is absolutely right, and he is such a valuable addition to this place. I thank him for his friendship.
Kim Leadbeater
She would have loved you.
It is so important that we keep empathy and compassion at the heart of our politics, and Jo understood that better than most. She believed deeply in human dignity. She believed that people from different backgrounds could live together peacefully. She believed that Britain is strongest when it is open-hearted rather than fearful. That belief cost her her life, but it must not die with her.
If there is one lesson we should take from Jo’s legacy, it is this: hatred grows when good people become indifferent to division. The answer to polarisation cannot be more polarisation. The answer to fear cannot be more fear. The answer must be courage—the courage to listen, the courage to speak responsibly, the courage to reject extremism in all its forms, the courage to defend democratic values even when emotions run high and, most importantly, the courage to remember that we belong to one another.
In remembering Jo today, let us not simply mourn what was lost; let us ask ourselves what kind of country we want to become. Do we want a society defined by outrage and suspicion, or one defined by compassion and solidarity? Do we want future generations to inherit division, or do we want them to inherit hope? That choice is ours. Perhaps the greatest tribute we can offer Jo is not merely to repeat her words, but to live by them and to show in all our actions and behaviours that we really are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.