‘I didn’t really speak right or know the right people’
Jo Cox was a fearless and passionate rising star who boldly locked horns with her party’s leadership
JO Cox was an MP who never forgot her roots. When she became the Labour MP for Batley and Spen last year, the constituency where she grew up, she said she had achieved her dream.
“I am Batley and Spen born and bred,” the 41-year-old told the Commons in her maiden speech. “And I could not be prouder of that. I am proud that I was made in Yorkshire and I am proud of the things we make in Yorkshire.”
She grew up in Heckmondwike, where her mother, Jean, was a school secretary, while her father, Gordon, worked in a toothpaste and hairspray factory in Leeds.
She excelled at school and went on to become the first member of her family to go to university, graduating from Pembroke College, Cambridge, with a degree in social and political studies.
Cox admitted that Cambridge came as a culture shock. “I never really grew up being political or Labour,” she told the Yorkshire Post. “It kind of came at Cambridge, where it was just a realisation that where you were born mattered. That how you spoke mattered . . . who you knew mattered.
“I didn’t really speak right or know the right people. I spent the summers packing toothpaste at a factory, working where my dad worked, and everyone else had gone on a gap year.”
After graduating she had her first experience of politics, working as an adviser for the Labour MP Joan Walley. She went on to be an aid worker in developing countries, rising to become Oxfam’s head of global policy.
Max Lawson, Oxfam’s head of policy, who previously worked for Cox, said: “Jo was a brilliant, committed activist for social justice with boundless energy and kindness and who made a huge contribution at Oxfam.”
It was during this time that she met her husband, Brendan, a former executive at Save the Children.
Her work as a humanitarian campaigner led her to work with Sarah Brown, wife of former prime minister Gordon Brown, on a mission to prevent the deaths of mothers and babies in pregnancy and childbirth.
“I am heartbroken,” said Sarah Brown. “Jo had a truly remarkable spirit and passion . . . She was fearless, she was endlessly upbeat and she reached out to so many to join her cause.”
Cox also worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as an adviser and with antislavery group The Freedom Fund before becoming an MP. COMMITTED ACTIVIST: Tributes are left in memory of Jo Cox on Parliament Square in London
The Coxes’ children are a girl, 5, and a boy, 3. Family life was divided between their constituency home and a houseboat on the Thames.
Even when she was at work, Cox’s children were always close by. Earlier this week the entire family joined a flotilla on the Thames to campaign for Britain to stay in the EU.
On her Twitter page, she described herself as “mom, proud Yorkshire lass, boat dweller, mountain climber and former aid worker”.
Once she arrived in parliament, Cox rapidly marked herself out as one of her party’s rising stars, prepared to speak her mind even if it meant going against the wishes of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
She had a reputation for being approachable, level-headed and well liked in parliament. In her maiden speech last year, she spoke of the need for communities to come together around their differences, not be forced apart by them. — © The Daily Telegraph, London
I spent the summers packing toothpaste at a factory working where my dad worked and everyone else had gone on a gap year