Victim of stabbing and shooting : THE BRITISH LABOUR MP JO COX HAS DIED

Jo Cox, the 41 year old British Labour MP for Batley and Spen (West Yorkshire) was savagely attacked yesterday in her constituency town of Birstall, not far from Leeds. Sadly, she did not survive her multiple injuries caused by repeated stabbing and shooting around 1 pm and was declared dead at 1.48 pm.     Jo Cox was no ordinary MP. She made her mark very quickly after the election held in May 2015 when she won the Batley and Spen seat. She was an aid worker before becoming a parliamentarian, and had been Head of Policy at Oxfam, among other jobs she held in the charity and social sector. She fought hard for women’s rights, refugee children and a multicultural Britain. Both Labour and Conservative MPs agree that she was a very committed and promising Member of Parliament. Her attacker, a 52 year old man named Tommy Mair, shouted 'Britain First' twice according to a couple of eye witnesses. The Police are now investigating if her murder was politically motivated. ('Britain First' is the name of a far right political group in the UK. In a statement, the group has said that it had nothing to do with the killing of Jo Cox). Jo Cox was no ordinary MP because she always spoke her mind and dared to challenge both the PM David Cameron and her own leader Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party. It is worth remembering what Jo Cox once said about her party and indeed its leadership. “The clock is ticking. If we don’t change tack, many Labour MPs will not be Labour MPs after the 2020 election. It is not just Jeremy; we are all on probation. The future of the Labour Party is. We need to show there is a role for the Labour Party and we are a government-in-waiting.” Likewise, she did not hesitate to question David Cameron, the British Prime Minister in the House of Commons, especially with regard to the conflict in Syria, the plight of refugees and unaccompanied child refugees stranded in Europe, and asked why the UK was not doing more to help solve these problems. In her remarkable maiden speech in the Commons, Jo Cox said: “Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.” In a tribute to Jo Cox, David Cameron said: “We’ve lost a great star. She was a great campaigning MP with huge compassion and a big heart. People are going to be very, very sad at what has happened. My thoughts are with her husband, Brendan, and her two young children.” The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: “The whole of the Labour family, indeed the whole country is in shock and grief at the horrific murder of Jo Cox … [She] died doing her public duty at the heart of our democracy, listening to and representing the people she was elected to serve.” Her husband, Brendan Cox, a former senior executive at Save the Children, said that we should “all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn’t have a creed, race or religion – it is poisonous” before adding that “Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy and a zest for life that would exhaust most people.” Jo’s memory must be honoured, says The Guardian, “because the values and the commitment that she embodied are all that we have to keep barbarism at bay.” We couldn’t agree more. 17 June 2016