We have to be better than this

Uncut didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Jo Cox. We know lots of other Labour MPs, some among the 2015 intake, many personal friends. As soon as Thursday’s terrible news emerged, our thoughts turned not only to Jo’s family but also to our MP friends and their families. You don’t have to believe in God to immediately sense that it was only some kind of grace that kept them from suffering the same awful fate that Jo and her family are suffering.

There was so much to admire about Jo. Those who knew her best have captured this far better than we would be able. We have been moved by their tributes. We think too of what she had in common with other politicians and feel vulnerable on their behalf.

We have to be better than this. We are a tolerant, civilised and democratic country. Whatever else Jo’s murder was, whatever may have motivated her killer, it was a brutal attack on all that we hold most sacred. Quite possibly the darkest hour in the long history of the oldest democracy in the world.

We all now, whether as newly threatened MPs or concerned citizens, have an obligation to ensure that these most precious gifts of life in this country are not further tarnished but renewed. It remains the case, as Jo so poignantly put in her maiden speech, that more unites than divides us. There are patriots on all sides of the referendum debate. There are good people on both sides of the House of Commons. There is still time for us to turn around.

This begins with the Jo Cox Fund – to which Uncut has contributed and would encourage others to do so – and continues with how we conduct what remains of this terrible referendum campaign, and our political and civic lives beyond that.

https://www.gofundme.com/jocox


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11 Responses to “We have to be better than this”

  1. Anon E Mouse says:

    Thoughtful words. Well said.

  2. John P Reid says:

    I’m sorry I won’t donate, hope not hate call UKIP fascists, when they’re not,and they’re linked to UAF who’ve said violence is self defence, they’ve made physical threats to Nigel Farages family

  3. Ydoethur says:

    An excellent post somewhat marred by the advert at the bottom which incites violence against two serving MPs.

    We all have to be better than this. I despise Corbyn, but his response to this appalling murder was magnificent – dignified, thoughtful and patently sincere. If he were to make a real effort to behave like that at all times and leave the pathetic bullying and hectoring of the likes of Cameron and Watson in the gutter where it belongs, though he lose the next election he will deserve a place in history. What more fitting tribute could there be to an MP who died due to what appears to be over-violent rhetoric?

  4. Disenfranchised says:

    Yes, all very sad.

    But the problems are still here, and Ms Cox’s death is not going to make me return to a Labour party that has relegated a large portion of our people to second class citizens.

  5. paul barker says:

    Well said. I note that Labour Leave have learned nothing from Jos murder.

  6. Tafia says:

    Well said. I note that Labour Leave have learned nothing from Jos murder.

    I note Labour’s remain element have learnt nothing either and are already (despite promises to the contrary) using it as a referendum weapon (for example, a junk e-mail I received tonight, one of several, was imploring people to honour her death and vote Remain.)

    It shouldn’t be getting mentioned at all and to do otherwise is despicable. Either Remain want a clean fight or they don’t – and from the way they are behaving by attempting to make a martyr out of her then they obviously don’t.

    I also note Chris Bryant saying today that he doesn’t now a single MP from any side of the House where someone hasn’t ended up being imprisoned for making threats that the Police obviously took seriously..

  7. Mr Akira Origami says:

    Shame on Labour MP Neil Coyle of the leave campaign for politicising the murder of Jo Cox on Newsnight, just hours after her murder.

  8. Mr Akira Origami says:

    Apology …Neil Coyle is of the remain campaign.

  9. Roger Hird says:

    ” Quite possibly the darkest hour in the long history of the oldest democracy in the world”

    Oh, really?

    Ian Gow? Airey Neave? Anthony Berry? Or don’t Tories count in your picture of democracy? And of course Robert Bradford.

  10. Tafia says:

    Quite possibly the darkest hour in the long history of the oldest democracy in the world

    Not the Brighton bombing then?

  11. Bob says:

    Or the attempted murder some years ago by a radicalised woman of the religion of peace.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/nov/02/stephen-timms-attacker-guilty

    and the sympathy she got from the Guardian,

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2010/nov/02/roshonara-choudhry-michael-white-stephen-timms

    or this one.

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2000/jan/29/uk.politicalnews1

    Some people have been stating her death was an act ot terrorism, but is it, until the trial we don’t know his motivation or reasoning for the act of murder or he just be a man who has a severe psychiatric problem.

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