No one can replace a mother
MP’s tearful tribute as House unites in grief for murdered Jo
COMFORTED by family, Jo Cox’s two young children sat in the Commons gallery yesterday as they heard MPs pay emotional tribute to their mother.
Daughter Lejla, three, played with a drawing board as she sat on her father Brendan’s knee, while five-year-old son Cuillin cuddled his grandmother.
Down below in the chamber, two roses – one red and one white – rested on the green leather bench in the spot where their mother used to sit. Tomorrow would have been the murdered Labour MP’s 42nd birthday. United in grief yesterday, MPs congregated for a specially arranged hour-long session to honour her.
Politicians from all parties were reduced to tears as moving tributes were paid to the mother of two amid some of the most emotional scenes ever witnessed in the Commons.
Labour MP Rachel Reeves, who had known Mrs Cox for 20 years, broke down as she told MPs that her Batley and Spen constituency in Yorkshire ‘will go on to elect a new MP but no one can replace a mother’.
She said the former aide worker had wondered ‘whether you could be a great MP and a great mum at the same time’, adding: ‘Jo was struck down much too soon so it now falls on all of us shoulders… to combat and guard against hatred, intolerance and injustice.’
David Cameron praised Mrs Cox as ‘a voice of compassion whose irrepressible spirit and boundless energy lit up the lives of all who knew her’.
He said global celebrations will be held to commemorate her life and values on her birthday, adding: ‘Quite simply, there are people on our planet today who are only here, and alive, because of Jo.’ Mrs Cox’s children waved at Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who called for a ‘kinder and gentler politics’. ‘We have lost one of our own and our society has lost one of our very best,’ he added.
Both party leaders also paid tribute to the bravery of pensioner Bernard Kenny, 77, who was released from hospital yesterday after he was injured coming to Mrs Cox’s aid. Labour MP Stephen Kinnock, who shared an office with Mrs Cox, said his friend had been ‘assassinated because of who she was and what she stood for’.
Stephen Doughty, who worked with Mrs Cox at Oxfam, added: ‘I can’t ever recall seeing her sad, negative or without hope.’
Also in the gallery were Mrs Cox’s parents Gordon and Jean Leadbetter and her sister Kim, who wiped away tears and smiled. Mr Cox later revealed he had asked his children to write down their memories of their mother and hang them on a tree near their East London home. MPs wore the white rose of Yorkshire in their lapels as a symbol of Mrs Cox’s home county while some women wore colourful scarves – a fashion trademark of the late MP.
At the end of the session MPs broke out into an extraordinary two-minute round of applause before heading to a service at St Margaret’s Church where chaplain Rose Hudson-Wilkin described Mrs Cox as a ‘prophet’ who spoke the truth. Singing from inside could be heard across Parliament Square.
The man accused of murdering Jo Cox will be treated as a terrorrelated case, it emerged yesterday. Thomas Mair, 52, appeared in the Old Bailey via videolink yesterday charged with murder and possession of a firearm and an offensive weapon. He was remanded until Thursday when Mr Justice Saunders will hold a pre-trial hearing under terrorism-related protocols. During a previous court appearance Mair, of Birstall, West Yorkshire, gave his name as ‘death to traitors, freedom for Britain’.