Tributes to Jo Cox

Prime Minister, what is your message to the family today? I first met Jo

in Duff all in 2006. She was looking after the rubble refugees and here

we are today and here we ard commemorating her life that was

lost. -- a husband has lost loving whfe, two

children have a mother and we have lost a passionate and brillhant

campaigner, someone who epitomised the fact that politics is about

serving others. Today, our nation is shocked and it is a moment to stand

back and think about some of the things that are so important about

our country. The fact that we should treasure and value our democracy

where members of Parliament are out in the public, are accountable to

the public, available to thd public, and that is how Jo died. Shd died

doing her job. I think the second thing is that we should recognise

that politics is about publhc service people who go into public

life, there want to act in the national interest, to do thhngs for

other people, to make the country in the world a better place.

Politicians disagree with e`ch other, we often disregard what

politicians say and Buddhists regard each other and the rest of ht but at

the end of the day, -- and we disregard each other. Perhaps most

important of all, we should value and see as precious democracy that

we have on these islands whdre 5 million of us live together and work

together and get on together. We do have peace and we do have stability

and we do have a measure of economic well-being still to be spre`d far

more widely. It is all underpinned by tolerance. Where we see hatred,

where B finds division, where we see in tolerance, we must try that out

of our politics and out of our public life and out of our

communities. If we truly want to honour Jo, we should recognhse that

her values, service, communhty, tolerance, the values she lhved by

and worked by, those other values that we need to redouble in our

national life in the months and in the years to come. You have been

granted a level of security beyond the rank and file members. What

concerns does this race for the MPs? We need our whole society to be

secure. Jo was brutally murdered here 24-hour was a goal in this

town, a town she loved, a town she grew up in, serving the comlunity

she loved. In her life, she had worked for anti-slavery campaigns,

she worked for Oxfam, she w`s a campaigner for human rights and

justice or around the world. She was taken from us in an act of hatred,

in a vile act that has killdd her. It is an attack on democracx, what

happened yesterday. It is the well of hatred that killed her. She

leaves behind a husband, he made a truly wonderful statement ydsterday,

a statement saying that in her memory, we will try to conqter

hatred with love and respect. She also leaves behind two young

children that will never sed the mother again. They will onlx be able

to grow up knowing what she was what she stood for and what she

achieved. I've asked the Prhme Minister and the Speaker for the

recall of Parliament on Monday and they have request. Parliament will

be recalled on Monday so th`t the campaign due tribute to her on

behalf of everybody in this country who values democracy, values the

right of free speech and values the right of political expression, free

from the kind of Britannica that Jo suffered. -- the kind of brttality.

We need to come together to understand that everyone must have

put action and security in order to two function in a diplomatic

society. Jo was our exceptional wonderful and talented woman, taken

from us in her early 40s, when she had so much to give and so luch of

her life ahead of her. It is a tragedy beyond tragedy what has

happened yesterday. In her lemory, we will not allow those people to

spread hatred and we will strengthen our democracy and strengthen our

free speech. She was a trulx wonderful woman. I am deeplx sorry

and deeply standard -- sadddned about what has happened to her. Did

the events of yesterday caused you and parliamentarians to look at

politics differently? Did the squabbles on the political rivalries

seem more trivial? Today, I think everybody is united in horror, and

in an overpowering respect for somebody who we came to know whose

talents we admire, whose passion we observed on a daily basis. There are

legitimate differences, as the Prime Minister and the Leader of the

Opposition have said and those differences on matters of policy

will always be there and th`t is part of the democratic dialogue But

we are able to come together and to say two things. First of all, as

everybody here knows, Jo Cox was quite outstanding member of

Parliament, 13 months representing her constituency, she made `n

extraordinary impression on her colleagues, on the media, and I am

quite certain on her constituents. As has already been said, she had a

huge amount more to give and she was inspired by a moral passion, a

deep-rooted conviction that she shared with Brendan and Brendan and

her children and her childrdn should being doubly proud, and her

constituencies. Secondly, it was a despicable and appalling act which

has shocked not merely people here but people right across the country

and I suspect many millions of people around the world. Evhl cannot

be allowed and will not be `llowed to triumph over good. And wd just

have to underline our deterlination as politicians across the spectrum

that free speech and the right of people to go about their business

and the pursuit of principld will continue and it will not be dulled

or dimmed or cowered in anyway by people who think that violence and

the spirit of hatred can be allowed to triumph. That has not happened,

as I think we are demonstrating today. And it will not happdn. Not

now. And not at any time. Everybody here must be incredibly protd of Jo

Cox. From my vantage point, I got to see her, I got to hear her, I knew

of her passion and commitment and ability and of her quite

extraordinary hard work. Evdryone here today knows that and wd have

come together in grief with admiration and in respect. Thank you

very much. I know the whole house will join

with me in sending our profound to the family and friends of those

killed in the in Orlando on Sunday. to the family and friends of those

killed in Orlando on Sunday. This attack, along with the callous

murder of a French policeman This attack, along with the callous

murder of a French police couple on Monday, is a stark remind

of the challenge we face to defeat the poisonous ideology of D`esh both

online and on our streets. But I believe that together

with our friends, our allies and our common values,

we will prevail.