Jo Cox
 Jo Cox MP     (politician) | ||||||||||||
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| Born | Helen Joanne Leadbeater 22 June 1974 Batley, West Yorkshire, England | |||||||||||
| Died | 2016-06-16 (Age 41) Birstall, West Yorkshire, England | |||||||||||
| Nationality | British | |||||||||||
| Alma mater | Pembroke College, Cambridge | |||||||||||
| Children | 2 | |||||||||||
| Spouse | Brendan Cox | |||||||||||
| Member of | WEF/Young Global Leaders/2009 | |||||||||||
| Victim of | Murder | |||||||||||
| Party | Labour | |||||||||||
| Subpage | •Jo Cox/Murder | |||||||||||
An MP murdered without obvious motive in June 2016.
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Helen Joanne "Jo" Cox[1] (22 June 1974 – 16 June 2016) was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. She was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Batley and Spen having retained the seat for Labour in the 2015 General Election.[2]
On 17 June 2016, David Cameron paid tribute to murdered MP Jo Cox, calling her "one of our most compassionate campaigners". Speaking alongside the prime minister in Mrs Cox's West Yorkshire constituency, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said Parliament would be recalled on Monday 20 June 2016, and labelled her death "an attack on democracy".[3]
Murder
On 16 June 2016, Jo Cox MP was shot and stabbed multiple times outside the public library in Birstall, West Yorkshire, where she was due to hold a surgery with her constituents. She was left in a critical condition and died from her injuries approximately an hour later.[4] A "52-year-old man", identified by The Daily Telegraph and The Independent as Thomas "Tommy" Mair, was arrested.[5]
Eye witness
Eye witness Hichem Ben Abdallah told Channel 4 News a "very brave" bystander tried to stop a man who pulled out a gun and shot Mrs Cox twice and also assaulted her. Mr Abdallah, who was in a cafe next door to the library, said he saw people rushing down the road towards the library and heard two shots. He saw a man wearing a "dirty white baseball cap" who started "jostling with somebody", a bystander who appeared to be trying to stop him. He said:
- "There was a guy who was being very brave and another guy with a white baseball cap who he was trying to control, and the man in the baseball cap suddenly pulled a gun from his bag. He was fighting with her and wrestling with her and then the gun went off twice."[6]
Mr Abdallah said Mrs Cox was shot from between two cars and then kicked as she lay on the ground:
- "It looked like a gun from, I don't know, the First World War or a makeshift, handmade gun. It's not sort of like the kind of gun you see normally."
Mr Abdallah described a hysterical situation with lots of people screaming, but added that the gunman walked off "very, very coolly, very slowly".[7]
Family
Jo Cox MP was married to Brendan Cox, who served as an adviser on international development to Gordon Brown during the latter's premiership.
Their two children were aged three and five when she died.
The Cox family divided their time between a constituency home and a houseboat on the River Thames, moored near Tower Bridge, London.[8][9]
Corbyn tribute
The whole of the Labour Party and Labour family - and indeed the whole country - will be in shock at the horrific murder of Jo Cox today.
Jo Cox had a lifelong record of public service and a deep commitment to humanity. She worked both for Oxfam and the anti-slavery charity, the Freedom Fund, before she was elected last year as MP for Batley and Spen – where she was born and grew up.
Jo was dedicated to getting us to live up to our promises to support the developing world and strengthen human rights – and she brought those values and principles with her when she became an MP.
Jo Cox died doing her public duty at the heart of our democracy, listening to and representing the people she was elected to serve. It is a profoundly important cause for us all.
Jo was universally liked at Westminster, not just by her Labour colleagues, but across parliament.
In the coming days, there will be questions to answer about how and why she died. But for now all our thoughts are with Jo’s husband Brendan and their two young children. They will grow up without their Mum, but can be immensely proud of what she did, what she achieved and what she stood for.
We send them our deepest condolences. We have lost a much loved colleague, a real talent and a dedicated campaigner for social justice and peace. But they have lost a wife and a mother, and our hearts go out to them.[10]
Related Documents
| Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Document:Peak Kinnock | Article | 19 September 2016 | Craig Murray | "11,000 people saving £2 a month might not save a dying little baby, but would exactly pay the £264,000 per year salary of Neil Kinnock’s daughter-in-law Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Chief Executive of Save the Children and wife of MP Stephen Kinnock. Misery for some is a goldmine for others." |
| Document:Someone said they wanted to see me trapped in a burning car and watch flames melt my flesh | Article | 22 October 2021 | Nadine Dorries | After the murder of MP David Amess, a crackdown on "internet trolls" is being demanded by most politicians. The UK's new Culture Minister Nadine Dorries is pursuing new overreaching legislation regulating Big Tech. The "Online Safety Bill" will abolish online anonymity and empower internet censorship. There are fears that it will be the end for freedom of expression in the UK. |
References
- ↑ "No. 61230". The London Gazette. 18 May 2015.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto"). London Gazette uses unsupported parameters (help)
- ↑ "Batley & Spen Parliamentary constituency". BBC News. Retrieved 7 May 2015.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑ "Jo Cox MP death: David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn unite in tributes"
- ↑ "Jo Cox MP dead after shooting attack". BBC News. 16 June 2016. Retrieved 16 June 2016.Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css must have content model "Sanitized CSS" for TemplateStyles (current model is "Scribunto").
- ↑
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- ↑ "MP Jo Cox Killed In 'Appalling' Street Attack"
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