16/06/2016 Newsnight

Just before one o'clock today, Jo Cox, MP for Batley and Spen breath,

was attacked near Birstall. I am now sadly informing issue has died from

her injuries. The murder of a sitting MP

in her constituency near Leeds, the first in this country

for over two decades. Jo Cox had not been in parliament

for long, but was a good example of a how accessible

and down to earth MPs can be. across from the library

where Jo Cox was murdered and a little over a mile

from where she was born. We'll have reaction from the local

area and I'll talking to the MP Angela Smith - one of Jo Cox's

close friends and colleagues, And we'll ask if it's time to give

MPs more security and more respect, Also tonight, we look at child

marriage in Bangladesh, where one in two girls are married

before reaching adulthood. It's not a day for arguing,

campaigning, and definitely not a day for

insulting political opponents. Politicians put differences aside

today in light of the fatal attack The first murder of a sitting MP

since the death of Ian Gow It left Westminster -

and much of the country - in shock. Yes, politics can be brutal,

but we pride ourselves on keeping it largely free

of personal violence. And indeed, we pride ourselves

on our ability to prevent the violent or mentally

ill obtaining guns. Jo Cox was a popular MP,

one who had worked for Oxfam before A perfect example to remind us that

whatever bile is thrown at the political class,

many are down to earth, Far from cutting themselves off

from the population at large, indeed, that is an issue that

will perhaps be examined now. Before we go to Yorkshire,

here's Nick Watt on Jo Cox herself. And whilst we celebrate our

diversity, the thing that surprises me time and again as I travel around

the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in

common than that which divides us. British politics was brought to a

sudden standstill today when one of the shining lights of the next

generation was extinguished. Jo was full of love, love for her family,

love for her constituency, love for her job, she loved being an MP, and

love for the issues she campaigned so tirelessly on and for that love

to be destroyed in a mindless attack, a premeditated attack,

motivated it appears by hate, is absolutely sick. In a brief

statement this afternoon, police confirmed that Jo Cox, who had only

been the Labour MP for Batley and Spen for just over a year, had

become the first MP to be murdered since the IRA blew up Ian Gow in a

car bomb attack in 1990. Just before 1pm today, Jo Cox, MP for Batley and

Spen, was attacked in market Street, Birstall. I am now very sad to

report that she has died from her injuries. The Lord is my shepherd, I

shall not once... Not since the death of the late Labour leader John

Smith in 1994 has there been such a genuine outpouring of grief amongst

MPs across the spectrum at the loss of one of their own. The whole of

the Labour family are devastated tonight. Jo Cox has been killed

doing her duty, doing her work, as a constituency MP. She is somebody who

dedicated her life to human rights and to justice and she leaves behind

two young children, two young children who will never grow up to

see them again. They can be proud of what she was, they can be proud of

what she did and they can be very proud of everything that she stood

for. She was a bright star, no doubt about it. A star for her

constituents, a star in Parliament and right across the House.

Campaigning was suspended in the EU referendum and George Osborne ripped

up his annual Mansion house speech to remove any mention of Europe.

Instead, he paid a moving tribute to Jo Cox. Jo fought to help the

refugees from the Syrian civil war and she gave a voice to those who

are the leader whose cry for help she felt was not being heard -- to

those whose cry the help she felt was not being heard. The changed

attitudes and I noted contributed to a change in policy. She will never

know how many lives she helped transform. Today, doing their job,

she senselessly lost her own life. As a former head of policy at Oxfam,

Jo Cox was admired by colleagues as a passionate campaigner, but she was

not afraid to challenge her own party, as she did last autumn when

she said there was a strong case for military intervention in Syria. Jo

was not afraid of speaking out and standing up for what she believed

in. She was a strong campaigner. This evening, her husband Brendan

Cox hailed his wife's work, but reminded the country, in a

statement, that while she would be remembered as a great campaigner,

her first thoughts were always with their children. He said...

The dignity of the response to Jo Cox's death stands in stark contrast

to the intense and sometimes ugly whirlwind of political battles.

Perhaps the pause for reflection will lead to a kind of politics. --

a kinder politics. Well, the murder occurred

in broad daylight, on the streets of Birstall,

outside the town's library. There are lots of questions

about the mental health and potential far right

links of the suspect. Jo Cox wanted to be as accessible

as possible to her constituents many of whom she would have

known since childhood. Today, she came to this library

to her monthly surgery, it would have been advertised,

no appointment was necessary. Here she would have felt

in no danger as she dealt There is a huge sense of disbelief

and profound sadness John Sweeney has been speaking

to people in the town. And has the story of how the day

unfolded. Tonight, a brilliant star of British

politics lies dead. Instead of life and argument, Jo Cox is commemorated

by candlelight. How could it be that anyone would want to murder this

mother of two? The prime suspect is Tommy Mair. No one we have spoken to

ever suspected he might be capable of murder. What is so extraordinary

about the murder of Jo Cox is that everything has happened very

locally. The killing itself took place about a mile from here, but

this is the home of the suspect behind me. As you can see, there are

a couple of police officers and behind them, some forensic officers

who are obviously going through the House. I have spoken to some of the

neighbours, they knew this man, the suspect. They say he is quiet,

ordinary, no trouble. One of them said she saw him walk past her house

this morning. Nobody here can understand how one of their

community could have done this thing. Jo, the Labour MP for Batley

and Spen, was talking to constituents in the local library

when the assault began around 1pm today. I heard a loud noise behind

me, it sounded like a car backfiring. Obviously became aware

it was a gunshot. As I turned around to look at what the noise was, I

heard a woman screaming and a guy was bent over the woman, I could see

her leg sticking out, it looks like a gun in his hand. He proceeded

again to shoot her on the floor. She was crawling away. Two men were

wrestling the man. He then wielded the knife. The killing of Jo Cox

occurred as far as we can tie with foresight. Immediately behind the

library was where Jo was talking to her constituents. A man assaulted

her. She ran down the hill and there was a kind of running battle. Her

shoes and handbags were taken away by the forensic people a bit ago.

Then she turns right into a car park and that is where she -- he stabs,

that is when she goes down. The words I heard him say it were

"Britain first" or "Put Britain first", but Britain first was what

he was saying, he said it at least twice. Jo Cox was certified dead at

1:48pm. Steven Lees has known the suspect Tommy Mair since childhood.

Sometimes in the shop I could see his hands were red raw and maybe his

face and his forehead was a bit red and his brother used to tell me when

he had been gardening or cooking or something like that, he would attack

his hands and his face and his head with a nail brush, to clean himself.

So much that he hurt himself? He would rub the skin off. Where was

his politics, did he talk politics to you? He would never talk

politics. I never once thought he was into politics. He didn't seem

the type to be into politics. I never heard him express any opinions

about politics. So a loner, odd, peculiar, but not to the people who

knew him a killer. Over the coming days, we will learn more about the

killing of Jo Cox. Only one thing is absolutely clear tonight. Our

country has lost a brave and singular politician.

Well I am joined the now here in Birstall by one of Jo Cox's good

friends and colleagues, Angela Smith. I'm so sorry for your loss

tonight. Hard-working, popular, how would you describe her? Jo was just

a very warm, lively, engaging personality and everybody who met

her just became friends with her almost instantly. You know, it was

never hard to get to know Jo, never difficult. She always had plenty to

say. Some politicians now are criticised the coming straight into

politics, she had a huge career, policy director at Oxfam, work on

the White ribbon campaign and maternal deaths. Absolutely and her

personality actually made her very effective campaign and I have spoken

to many people today who actually would say that Jo was at the

forefront of the battle to get the 0.7% of GDP aunts aid spending. She

went out to dar four and helped this country build a consensus around

this, she fought for women's writes, for women refugees who were raped

and assaulted and all of her life, she has done that and that is what

makes today so tragic in many ways. We have lost Jo as a human being but

we have also lost a fantastic campaigner. Also, what I was saying

at the very beginning, reading about her, she was so determined to be

accessible. So people would walk into her surgery, she didn't want to

feel she was apart from the people she had grown up with. That is right

and I think most of us want to work that way. I do appointments in my

surgeries. We all want to be as open as possible and we are not going to

close the doors to our constituents. We all do the job the way we feel

most comfortable with. But do you feel that MPs, in recent years, are

more vulnerable and people feel they can have a go at them, have an issue

with them? You get a lot of that online, you get a lot of e-mails and

stuff on social media in that vein, but actually when you meet most

people face-to-face, they are absolutely fine and one thing I am

sure about, I am not going to have my professional life or my personal

life circumscribed by events like this. And nor would she have wanted

that. In a moving tribute, her husband wrote about the love she

would want to be shown to her children, but he also said she would

want us to unite against the hatred that killed her, eight does not have

creed, race or religion -- hate. Indeed. Someone may have killed Jo

Cox today but they haven't killed what she stands for, it is

impossible, because we will absolutely carry on working and

fighting for what Jo Cox stood for. She stood for human rights,

equality, international justice. Nobody can kill that. Do you think

that, had she lived, she would have been possible prime ministerial

material? Jo would have achieved great things and hip she was here

today, she would say, "Me, Prime Minister? Come on!" She was the type

of person who just wanted to get on with everybody and achieve what she

believed in and fight for the principles he believed in. What

impact you think this will have on politics immediately? I think it has

changed politics forever. There is talk of a recall of Parliament and I

would welcome that. I recall soon. Yes, and I would welcome that

because I would like to pay tribute to Jo and for her colleagues to

reconvene and use Parliamentary democracy to demonstrate that

democracy will not be beaten by this. We will continue to represent

our constituents in Parliament and that is the best tribute possible

that we could pay to Jo. Angela Smith, thank you very much.

You can't read too much into a ghastly attack like this,

at least not on the information we have at the moment.

Mental health could be the primary issue, or malign political purpose.

Sometimes, frankly, there's a blurred line between the two.

But do we owe our MPs more security for the risks they take, and more

The anger and unpleasantness that characterises some of the discourse

But does it stoke up unhealthy feelings of hate that can spin out

Our political editor Nick Watt is with me.

Let's start with, you spoke to some other friends of Jo Cox this

afternoon, proof that emotions are running high. I spoke to four of her

closest parliamentary friends, people who have known her for 20

years and worked with her. In a very moving joint interview they paid

tribute to her as a great human rights campaigner but also somebody

who exuded humanity and great human warmth. To be honest I think what

stood out for me was Jo's amazing energy, she always had a smile, a

new idea. We would call her the Energizer Bunny, she wanted to fight

and do things and make things happen, she wouldn't take no for an

answer and that defined her. She was working hard every day. She was

tireless in the things she cared about. She was also such good fun to

be around. She was an amazing MP but we've lost a really good friend

today and I can't believe she's gone. I can't imagine what Brendan

and the family are going through now. Walking through and her not

being on the benches. It doesn't seem real. How good, somebody who

was full of demanding energy, full of life, who frankly set an example

for us all, how can that person be gone? It would be so common to see

Jo arriving in the nick of time for a vote because she had been cycling

like a maniac, in her cycling gear, she would always be there for her

kids, always taking them in, getting the evening meal. I can't imagine

what the family are going through. It is such a massive loss. And it is

what she would have done next, she had only been here for a year and

she had done so much, especially refugees and money for Syria. A

conviction politician as well as being a fully paid-up member of the

human race, representing the best of what politics should be about and

what humanity is about. It isn't just us who have lost someone, it is

those who are most vulnerable in the world who have lost their most woman

double champion. That's what we've lost. We need to realise what we've

lost, one of the gutsiest and most principled, intelligent, brilliant

women I've ever had the honour in my life to know. All we care tonight is

how on earth we carry on without Jo by our side because she kept us

going. Jo was brave, she endured, a lot of us get difficult times on

social media, but she stood up because she was doing what she

believed in and that was testament to her, the difference she was

prepared to make. We talked about it on Tuesday night, as Brendan, her

husband said in his statement, no regrets about anything she has done

in her life. She woke up every day thinking about how she can change

the world and she got stuck into it. That is the example we have to

follow and it's that spirit we have to take and run with. There are

people who are safe in the world because of Jo and that is what she

stood for. She lived that every day and we have to keep fighting for

what she believed in. Politicians as human beings. Nick, security, in the

house, out in their constituencies, it has to be an issue now? Important

to render that in the last 15 years, two MPs have been subject knife tax,

Nigel Jones and Stephen Timms. -- knife attack. But in recent years,

concerns have been raised by MPs in the light of these Syria vote and

the attacks on them in MPs online and concerns are being expressed.

One of the parliamentary democracy, the direct contact between MPs and

constituents leave them very vulnerable. The parliamentary

authorities have agreed to pay in recent months for security at MPs'

homes and offices in their constituencies but there are real

concerns that while Parliament is a fortress, the authorities there are

not taking the potential threat in constituencies enough and there are

concerns that perhaps the message isn't getting down to local police

forces, who think that MPs are predicted in Parliament, not seeing

that those MPs are still vulnerable once they are in their

constituencies. What about the big political issue, the tone of our

politics, the vitriol, the demonisation of them? The license

people feel, really, to be very nasty about MPs in their language

and on social media. Has this crystallised thoughts? Important to

say that we don't yet know the motive for the murder but clearly

what is happening now is that British politics is taking a step

back. There is a pause for breath and one thing people are looking at

is the very aggressive tone on social media. I was talking to a

very senior Labour MP, a lady MP who said that MPs are very open,

advertising their movements on social media, and she said that she

feared that the aggressive personalised tone on social media

really is having a very negative effect on policy and individual

safety. Well, on that point about vitriol

in politics and social media, it has become an issue today,

even without us knowing exactly Let's just play a clip from Labour

MP for Bermondsey, Neil Coyle. from the news about Jo Cox,

but he drew a line from hate-filled social media, through to rhetoric

about migrants and what he sees as the demonising of foreigners,

right through to components of the Leave campaign

in the referendum. He's not the only one

to have done that today. I think that the kind of nonsense

they inspire online from anonymous accounts and actually the core

content of the posts accounts and actually the core

content of the poster that they launched today,

look at what they are putting out. I think they are a very dangerous...

They risk inspiring extremist elements on the hard right in this

country. Labour parliamentary

candidate in 2015 Anne McElvoy, senior

editor at The Economist, and Jonathan Freedland,

columnist at The Guardian. Thank you for joining us. Is a very

sad day. Let's start with the most pointed of all the criticisms, that

somehow it is elements of the political campaigns we are seeing at

the moment which have been most vicious and spreading viciousness.

Jonathan, do you agree that there is a read-through from that into

political violence? It predates what's going on now, the Brexit

debate, it is the political culture. We don't know what is in the mind of

this individual but the idea that the debate has got more course has

been undeniable. Expenses was a watershed moment where suddenly it

was casual and routine to depict MPs as venal and grubby and entirely

self interested and that has congee into an accepted received wisdom,

all the same as each other, you can't trust them, all liars -- has

congee. If you have that poison injected into the bloodstream

eventually you will have consequences. -- congealed. In the

Guardian tomorrow, Polly Toynbee has written an article, very much on the

same lines, that they there is possibility, not for the attack, but

for the mood, for the inflammatory language, overt racism, a noxious

brew with a dangerous anti-MP stereotype. Do you believe that? I

haven't read the column, so I don't want to comment in any detail. It

depends who the they is. Step back and look at the tone of our

politics, but I think it is a bit tendentious, that leap into the

permissive environment where everything you don't like then

becomes in some way the slippery slope to this most terrible murder.

Even if we get to know a bit more about the man and his political

affiliations, by an unlikely to be wholesome and that has gone over

many years, many decades and different democracies have had to

confront it on the far left and the far right. Anything that goes

outside the democratic norm and feeds violence is wrong. I feel we

should stand up for that as the democratic principle. One

interesting counterfactual, I covered Germany and east German

unification, in 1990, a man who is now the very eminent Finance

minister was attacked, brutally attacked, he has been in a

wheelchair ever since. That was in the mood of 1990, very het up,

reunification. The political discourse in Germany was by our

standards very gentle, almost herbivorous. It came out of the time

but what is the link we are drawing? I wonder if we are trying to draw

too much, trying to imbue this with too much meaning. It could be an

isolated man with severe mental health problems. It's nothing to do

with politics, with the Brexit debate, I wonder if that's the way

to look at it? It might be but we have suspended campaigning and we

have an opportunity to decide, once we start campaigning again, whether

we will continue in the same way because let's be honest, there are

patriots on both sides of the debate. We need to have a more

respectful kind of debate. I was on the bridge, Westminster Bridge being

the rather unedifying flotilla fight in the river. Yes, it makes for some

fun, for some entertaining sketches, but with those kind of

gesticulations between two millionaires, let's be honest, I

waved at Jo and Brendan and their children in their rib from the

bridge while I saw people shouting traitor at each other. That kind of

language is the only bad for politicians but it is bad for each

other and the national conversation. We need to be better than that. A

lot of people saying that this is spirited politics and the more you

give voice to people's anger and emotion and passion, the less likely

you are to have hideous outbursts. You can do that, you can have

spirited politics without resulting Dyer resorting to the language of

toxicity. -- without resorting. MPs on social media have been on the end

of death threats and rape threats, you can think of that as sealed off

in the online world, but sometimes there are real-world consequences.

You are right to want to separate the day, which we don't moan about,

we can only mourn about it -- which we don't know about. We should think

about it. The interesting example from Germany, the thing about

demonising a category of people involved in politics. I covered the

aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing in America in 1995, there

was a building of federal bureaucrats and 167 of them were

killed. The lead up to that, the phrase federal bureaucrats became

almost an insult. Talk radio work demonising them as if they were the

source of America's problems. After Oklahoma City, people pulled back

and thought, maybe we shouldn't talk about these people like that any

more. Maybe we should think about how we talk about politics and

public servants. In a rambunctious political culture where we allow

liberalism, that is very much at stake here, we will never agree.

Even you and I, we are closer than some of the people watching, to the

left and to the right of us, there will be things where they will say

that we have crossed the line and we have to stand up in a democracy for

the right to offend as well as be offended. That's fine, but the

reality is that politics and democracy is supposed to be an alter

native to violence. What I'm worried about is starting to see a language

in the national conversation which facilitates and allows violence to

be legitimised. That's a problem. Whether it is the specifics of

today. Overall, politicians and many other people who are doing good work

like Jo did, she did it in refugee camps, people at food banks can find

themselves in the face of histolytica because of the way that

decisions are being made. That's not good enough. -- in the face of

hostility. Can we talk about the security of MPs? Is it possible to

have accessible MPs who are meeting their constituents, as available as

Jo Cox was, and give them some help and security? I think it's going to

be a very difficult trade-off. That sounds like a tough thing to say

after such a promising young woman has been struck down but one of the

things, having been to different countries and covering different

politics, I would stand up for that slightly... Go to the

constituencies, however grand they are in Westminster, the person has

to use in a slightly grubby room and meet you manatee with a lot of

problems, they don't always come in in the most polite form -- meet

humanity. It comes with a risk but I think it is important. Of course,

Nick what was important, talk to police forces and make sure that

there are sensible caveats in place but the good thing is that this is

not Russia or China, you can talk to your MP, if you are crossed, you can

tell them so. I think that's right, the legacy should be that Jo

achieved so much as a campaigner before she was elected. The thing we

must remember is that she achieved things and we want to make sure that

people like Jo can become politicians again and what I'm

worried about is that if we have this national conversation, becoming

so toxic, people like Jo will not stand as MPs in the future. Thank

you for joining us. Every year around the world,

15 million girls are forced to marry Bangladesh has one of the highest

rates of child marriage where over half of girls marry

before reaching adulthood. These girls often face sexual

violence, dangerous childbirth The government in Bangladesh

has pledged that within it'll eliminate the child marriage

of girls under 15 years old. Farhana Haider has been

to the capital Dhaka to meet girls on the outskirts of Bangladesh's

capital city Dhaka said this slum, where girls have to grow up fast.

TRANSLATION: Millions of girls here in Bangladesh

face a similar story. In fact, One in Five girls are married by the

time they reach their 15th birthday. All too often, they come from the

poorest areas, where girls are seen as a burden.

It is a patriarchal society, where a girl's reputation is everything.

Unmarried young women face harassment simply walking down the

street. So millions of girls are forced to marry before the legal age

of 18 to preserve family honour. In the slum, 40,000 people are

crammed onto a tiny plot of land. It is a city within a city, a

self-governing community where marriage is determined not by law

but by circumstances. In this maze of alleyways are one room tin

shacks, where entire families live. Births, deaths and marriages happen

here. For teenage girls living in this slum, life is tough. In the

heart of the slum leaves 13-year-old Molika, with her mother.

Molika is due to get married at the end of the week.

It is a false sense of security. Once married, the problems faced by

the girls often get worse. 16-year-old Sharmin was death by her

husband last year when she was four months pregnant with her baby.

Buried deep under the bed, Sharmin keeps her wedding clothes.

These girls are married off because their families can't afford to keep

them. Yet the reality is that once they are married, husbands start

demanding dowries they simply can't afford. So they are abandoned.

15-year-old Regina was married last year to a man 12 years older than

her. The Bangladesh Government estimates

that 87% of married women here face some form of physical or mental

abuse. Regina's husband left her a few months into the marriage, so her

father turned to the police for help.

He says he had to pay the police ?60, which is more than his monthly

income. Money and marriage go hand-in-hand

here. 17-year-old Ustma was married two years ago.

Ustma's husband left her after five months of marriage. But, like

thousands of other girls here in the slum, work in garment factories is

offering Jo at offering them independence. -- offering them

independence. The forced marriage of young girls

around the world will continue unless attitudes towards young women

change and they are allowed to fulfil their potential.

Let's take a quick look at the newspapers. The Times, they are all

obviously leading on Jo Cox, the murdered MP had faced a string of

security threats. Police were reviewing her protection, they say.

The Guardian, she believed in a better world, she fought for it

every day, the arrested man shouted "Britain first" according to

witnesses. The Sun takes the personal angle, husband's moving

tribute with a picture of the suspect on the front. The Daily

Mail, devoted mother of two, dedicated public servant, a

remarkable woman, what a tragic waste. And the Financial Times also

leading on it, the killing of Jo Cox brings abrupt halt to a referendum

-- the referendum campaign, which is suspended until Saturday. I love

that a couple of the continental papers, French and German, and on

their websites, they were leading on that story -- I looked at. Tonight,

democracy was continuing and today was the tooting by-election and

after the vote, the memorial to Jo Cox, they held a two minute silence

in her memory. We leave you tonight with a section of that.