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Jo Cox's murder has caused outpouring of love, says her husband Jo Cox: thousands pay tribute on what should have been MP's birthday
(35 minutes later)
Jo Cox’s murder has inspired far more love than the hatred that killed her, her husband has said in an emotional tribute at a celebration of the murdered MP’s life on what would have been her 42nd birthday. It should have been Jo Cox’s 42nd birthday. She would have spent it, her husband Brendan said, “dashing around the streets of her home town” campaigning to remain in the EU, just as she had spent the day before she died on an inflatable boat on the Thames with her two young children, in defiance of Nigel Farage’s pro-Brexit flotilla, flying a banner that read a determined “In”.
More than 10,000 people gathered in Trafalgar Square in London. The couple’s favourite band, Diddley Dee, who performed at Cox’s wedding, played at the event. Instead, six days after the Labour MP was killed outside a constituency surgery, her family, friends and many more who had never known her came together in events across Britain and the world to celebrate her life, and to insist that her legacy be one of love, tolerance and unity.
Each touch at the event, named More In Common in a nod to the words of Cox’s maiden speech in the Commons, was intensely personal. U2 frontman Bono, who admired Cox’s work with Oxfam, recorded a tribute song, and Lily Allen performed Somewhere Only We Know, which the family sang at the holiday cottage on the river Wye.
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Children from the school of Cox’s five-year-old son sang the civil rights anthem If I Had A Hammer. Thousands gathered in Trafalgar Square, central London, on Wednesday to hear the MP’s widower describe his wife as a “ball of energy” who had “come to symbolise something much bigger in our country and our world that is under threat” through her commitment to tolerance and uncompromising stance against extremism.
Brendan Cox, his voice catching, called his wife’s death “an act of terror designed to advance hatred against others”, adding: “What a beautiful irony it is that an act designed to advance hatred has instead generated such an outpouring of love.” Fighting back tears, Brendan Cox told the crowd that his wife’s killing had been political. “It was an act of terror designed to advance hatred towards others. What a beautiful irony it is that an act designed to advance hatred has in fact instead generated such an outpouring of love.”
The killing of Cox changed the tone of a bitter EU referendum campaign. Brendan Cox said his wife would have spent the final days of the campaign pushing for a remain vote. “She feared the consequences of Europe dividing again, hated the idea of building walls, and worried about the dynamics that that could unleash,” he said. The event also included tributes from the U2 singer Bono, actors Bill Nighy and Gillian Anderson and the humanitarian Malala Yousafzai, who said: “Jo’s life is proof that a message of peace is more powerful than any weapon of war. Once again the extremists have failed.”
The vigil, which was also attended by Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, fell silent at 3.18pm in a mark of respect. The silence was also observed at other events across the country and around the world including in Beirut, Brussels, Melbourne, Nairobi, Geneva, New York and Washington. But despite the calls for unity, the event was marred by two planes, one trailing a “Leave” banner, which repeatedly flew over the square during Brendan Cox’s tribute. One of those present, Lily Caprani, deputy executive director of Unicef, wrote on Twitter:
Among the crowd was the close knit community of Hermitage Moorings, where Cox lived on the family house boat. Wearing white roses, the group carried a 6ft banner with a picture of their friend, designed in the style of trade union banners. Maria Carey, Cox’s next-door neighbour, designed the banner in a race against time to get it ready for Wednesday, sketching it and begging firms to print over the weekend. A vote leave plane just flew over the Jo Cox memorial. Seriously. No words for how inappropriate that is. No words. #MoreInCommon
“She was the most wonderful person, always positive, it has been a privilege to know her personally and inspiring to see her professionally,” Carey said. “She inspired such a close community here, not everyone can do that.” In the market square in Batley, West Yorkshire – the MP’s hometown – about 2,000 people heard her sister, Kim Leadbeater, express her family’s gratitude for the “outpouring of comfort and support” that has followed the killing. While some, she said, would focus on continuing the “big picture” of Cox’s work, she urged others to integrate “tolerance, peace and understanding” in their everyday lives.
Watched by her parents, Gordon and Jean, Leabeater said: “From Batley to Burma and the Spen Valley to Syria, Jo’s life was centred around helping people and standing up for the causes she felt so passionately about.
“My sister would want her murder to mobilise people, to get on with things, to try to make a positive difference in whatever way we can, to come together and unite against hate and division and to fight instead for inclusion, love and unity. In Jo’s honour, and on behalf of her grieving family, I urge you to please do so.”
Many of those present, including the handful of police, wore white roses – the symbol of Yorkshire – and brought flowers to contribute to the large pile outside the town hall.
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Wellwishers held up Oxfam and Amnesty International placards and others clutched pledge cards from anti-fascist charity Hope Not Hate, one of the charities which will receive money from the fund set up in her name. Other commemorations were held in Dublin, Nairobi, Sydney, Brussels, and in New York, where several hundred people who had gathered near the UN heard Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, read a statement from Barack Obama.
The cards bore the hashtag #LoveLikeJo, with a drawing of the MP, and a space for people to write their own promises. To the right of the stage, a banner from the Syrian community read “Thank you Jo”. “We must never doubt how much things can change,” the US president said. “Jo knew that our politics at its best still works. If we recognise our humanity in each other we can advance social justice, human dignity and the peace that we seek in the world.”
In the crowd, Peter Bruggen said he felt “a great deal of sadness at this assassination” and said he was attending as a message of solidarity ahead of the referendum. “I was living in Strasbourg aged 15 to learn French, living with a family and taken to the opera and there, by chance, I sat right next to Robert Schuman – the prime minister of France at the time. Now, I don’t believe in these things but it felt like a message. I felt a closeness, a union, and have never had a doubt since that union was the right thing.” The Australian prime minister, Kevin Rudd, urged people on Twitter to “keep [the MP’s] legacy alive”, posting a link to a fundraising page that has raised more than £1.3m for causes Cox supported.
Two Spanish tourists, Cesar and Antonio, said they had come to the square to pay their respects during their holiday, calling Cox’s memorial a chance to show their belief in “freedom and respect for everyone”. Other tributes included a video recorded by the band Portishead, which included a quote from Cox’s maiden speech to parliament that said: “We have far more in common than which divides us.”
The tone was one of celebration, ending with a rousing protest anthem from the musical Les Misérables, Do You Hear the People Sing. In Edinburgh, about 100 people gathered on Portobello beach, with candles spelling out the phrase “more in common” pressed into the sand.
They heard her friend, Oxfam colleague and former bandmate Kim Wallace describe her as “fearless”. She said: “Jo was killed by hatred and if that happened to anyone else, Jo would not have been silent. She would’ve called it for what it was. I encourage you all to love the world like Jo did.”
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Friends on stage, in suffragette sashes, called on the whole square to hold hands, and raise their arms, pledging to love and take care of each other, apologising if the gesture seemed to be “un-British”. Brendan Cox said he had wanted the couple’s two young children, Cuillin and Lejla, who were present at the Trafalgar Square event, “to see what their mum meant to all of you”. Their day had begun at the family’s home on a barge on the Thames, where neighbours had carpeted one community dinghy named Yorkshire Rose with 1,000 roses. Brendan Cox and his children travelled up the river to Westminster, where the dinghy will be tethered for a week.
Freedom Fund chief executive Nick Gruno, one of Cox’s closest friends, who met her in Darfur and who co-organised the day, said the day had been intensely moving for friends and family. “People will move on, but now the family will have to pick up the pieces, they still have to get through the funeral,” he told the Guardian. He described his wife as “the best mum that any child could wish for. And wish we do, to have her back in our lives.” He said he and the children had spoken every day since her death about “the things we will miss, the memories we will cherish. We try to remember not how cruelly she was taken from us, but how unbelieveably lucky we were to have her in our lives for so long.”
“I think this has made people step back and think; there is so much division, so much hate on all sides of politics, the rhetoric has been horrendous. And I think this has been an awful circuit-breaker where people think and consider the violence in the language. I hope politicians next week don’t think, we’ve paid our tributes, off we go. I hope they hear this message in their hearts. He added: “I hope that everyone will understand that after this event it will be time for me and all our family to grieve in private.”
“But the discourse against politicians can be awful as well, Jo and female politicians get such horrible trolling, I hope this can help change it. Brendan and those close to him, we’re committed to reinforcing this message.” Additional reporting by Severin Carrell, Amber Jamieson, Ione Wells, Michael Slezak