The horrific death of Jo Cox and why heart and head now point us towards voting for Remain

FOR many undecided voters, this week’s EU referendum will have become a byelection with two candidates. On one side the sadly late, and lovely, Jo Cox and on the other, a man who called himself in court ‘Death to traitors, freedom for Britain’. It is a stark choice.

In campaigns, the losing side – on which I have been more than once – looks for what we call in the trade a ‘disruptive event’. In this case that sounds like a very poor euphemism.

I met Jo Cox more than once and found her immensely engaging but I cannot claim to have known her well enough to call myself her friend and breenge into the circle of love of those who deeply grieve for her.

What I do know is this. If the Good Lord had the grace to inform her at her birth that he would grant her barely 42 years to spend on Earth, she invested them wisely and generously in humanity.

At the same time let us be honest about our political conversation. Had a man not kicked her to the ground, shot her twice, stabbed her and then shot her in the face and killed her, were she still alive today and said we should take in 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 Syrian refugees, some of those who now publicly weep for her would have as easily condemned her as an Oxbridgeeducated MP who had never had a ‘proper job’.

Let us keep our grief in kilter with our prejudices or at least in perspective with them. I do not believe in a Judge Dreddstyle court of instant justice.

Bigotry

I do not believe, as others have opined, that you will find the fingerprints of Michael Gove, Boris Johnson or even the brass-buttoned Nigel Farage on the butt of the gun used to kill her.

As someone who spends half of his week south of the Border, I can assure you that the atmosphere in England which envelops this referendum is nowhere near as febrile or threatening as we experienced during the independence vote of 2014.

But if the blame must lie with politicians, Gove and Johnson cannot be first on the list. This is a story of crimes of omission rather than commission.

One, no serious mainstream politician has properly addressed the issue of immigration.

For too long concerns about it have wrongly been dismissed as racism. It is an issue ‘good’ people don’t talk about. The failure to fill that space has allowed the lounge bar bigotry of Farage to prosper.

Two, no one has engaged with the issue of rising English nationalism, an inevitable consequence of the Scots, Welsh and Irish asserting theirs.

England is groping for an identity which fits with being British, but no moderate voice has managed to speak for it.

I watched Michael Gove on television being inadequately cross-examined on the BBC by the latest in the Dimbleby line. His arguments were as believable as when, as a student, he gatecrashed ecclesiastical garden parties dressed as an Anglican priest for fun.

He genuinely used to do that. And bright and charismatic as he is, little has changed. He is an entertaining turn but he cannot be blamed.

I have noticed the horror of many of the couscous eating metropolitan commentariat in their reaction to Jo Cox’s tragic death.

These were the same people who day-tripped north of the Border during the Scottish referendum and smelt the sweet aroma of social democracy. Now a similar debate is happening in their own neighbourhoods they find their nostrils crammed with the stench of nationalism and they gag. The truth is, it is the same smell north or south of the Border.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many people I know, admire and love who believe in Scottish independence. I disagree with them honestly and respectfully. But that is different from nationalism.

Nationalism is when you fail to address the complex issues of the day and exploit the plight of those most in need by blaming someone else.

It’s not we who are at fault, it is the English. Or in the case of the EU, it’s the French and the Germans. Remember the fabled Jewish banking conspiracy of the 1930s – that one gained purchase but did not end well.

Nationalism is when you reassure yourself that nothing is wrong with you and if you think there is, it is someone else’s fault.

Campaigning was not really suspended when Jo Cox died. It just took a different turn. Brexiteers had no permission to speak. Instead our newspapers, screens and tablets told us a very clear story.

A wonderful woman who wanted to remain had been slain. The alleged killer was a diseased loner who wanted to leave. There are few comebacks to that.

Those who wish to lay blame on the misplaced rhetoric of Gove and Johnson should reflect that, just as easily, a mentally ill migrant might have stabbed Nigel Farage and changed the campaign as utterly as Jo Cox’s death has changed this one. Moral superiority is always a dangerous thing to claim. But what I find most striking about this referendum and the last is how foreign they are to the values I grew up believing in.

Both have been profoundly anti-Scottish and anti-British. Being inclusive is what I was taught. That Scots welcomed everyone. Our doors were never closed. There was an imperative to be a good neighbour.

Being British was all about compromise rather than conflict. The art was to accommodate and find a way of doing so. To concede something was to gain something – unity. Those identities are now being tested to breaking point by the questions we pose at referendums.

The orthodoxy is that for the side looking for change at a referendum to succeed it must be ten points ahead in opinion polls on the day of the vote. Leave has only briefly been that far ahead.

A month before the Scottish referendum, in a private meeting, David Cameron’s pollster Andrew Cooper called it eerily right. He said that those undecided voters who were going to vote Yes would choose to do so early, out of emotion. The polls would cross, he rightly predicted then return to a lead for No.

Those undecided who were going to vote No, he said, would do so late, out of grudging practicality. Whatever was the final poll, we would win by a larger margin.

It looks like we are seeing the same phenomenon again but this time with a truly tragic twist.

Emotion

The brutal murder of Jo Cox has given a vivid, pulsating emotional reason for those currently in the undecided column to vote Remain, not just out of grudging practicality.

This week’s referendum will not be decided by the reasoned arguments of either side carefully considered by a thinking electorate. What will be decisive is emotion.

The thought that a beautiful, intelligent woman – committed to her husband, her children, her community and to causes that were just damn right – was slaughtered by a bigot, will provoke such emotion.

Already Nigel Farage is bleating that his campaign had momentum until her death. If Remain wins, I suspect it will still be close enough for Brexiteers to call for a re-run, to claim that the UK Government’s campaign spending was unfair and that Jo’s murder clouded minds.

I would like a different fight. A fight for the Britain I grew up in where compromise and unity were valued qualities.

Jo Cox was Labour to her fingertips. But in the many moving tributes to her since her death, it has been striking how willing she was to work with others of different political persuasions to achieve what she believed in.

She achieved her greatest successes by doing so. Finding a way of working with others for a lasting good is one of the things I define as Britishness.

In that she embodied being British more than any deluded thug holding a gun ever could.