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TEARFUL MOURNERS LAID flowers outside the British parliament last night in memory of pro-EU lawmaker Jo Cox, hours after she was killed in a shock attack at a meeting with constituents.
Dozens of people gathered next to a large picture of the 41-year-old former charity worker, who had campaigned in favour of Britain’s membership of the European Union ahead of next week’s Brexit vote.
“What’s happened is beyond appalling. We are here in silent memory of her loss,” Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Cox’s centre-left Labour party, said at the event.
“This is a shocking occasion and I hope everybody realises hatred will never solve problems. Only people coming together will solve problems,” he said.
Corbyn was flanked by fellow members of the Labour party, many of them shaking and tearful, as they lit candles and one by one laid them beside the photograph of a smiling Cox.
“We are suspending all campaigning activities until the weekend as a mark of respect for her,” Corbyn said, referring to the tense run-up to Britain’s EU membership referendum on 23 June.
Mourners left heaps of flowers in the lawmaker’s memory, who was the first British MP to be killed in office since Ian Gow was killed by a car bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army in 1990.
She was left bleeding on the pavement after reportedly being shot and stabbed in the village of Birstall in northern England, according to witnesses quoted by media.
An eyewitness told the Manchester Evening News that a man shouted “Britain First” as he started the attack.
A 52-year-old man, named as Thomas Mair, has since been arrested and police say they are not looking for anybody else in relation to the incident.
‘United against hatred’
Fatima Ibrahim, a 23-year-old campaigner with human rights group Avaaz, which helped organise the vigil, told AFP she was “devastated”.
She was a fearless campaigner, and a voice for the voiceless. We feel shaken by her loss, but committed to meeting the hatred that killed her with love.
“We feel shaken by her loss,” she added.
Cox worked for charity group Oxfam before becoming a lawmaker in 2015, and several at the vigil recalled her tireless campaigning to help refugees from Syria.
Mike, a 55-year-old who works in the charity sector but who did not want to give his surname, described Cox as “someone who was utterly dedicated to the ideals of peace, love, justice on a global scale as well as in the UK”.
It is shocking. This kind of thing does not happen.
Activists set up a white placard reading ‘We carry the banner of love for Jo’ and invited others to add messages to it in coloured pens.
Tributes included ‘You can’t kill democracy’ and ‘Thank you for all you did for Syria, for humanity. We will unite against hatred.’
Another message listed Britain’s main political parties, and insisted that for one day at least the country was not divided by the two sides of the EU referendum.
“We are not Remain, Leave, Tory, Labour or Lib Dem tonight. We are Britons with a belief in parliament and democracy,” the message read.
In Birstall, a village of around 16,000 residents where eyewitnesses told British media they saw her being gunned down, mourners laid flowers at the foot of a statue.
Hundreds also gathered to pray at the local St Peter’s church.
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Puts are own problems and concerns into a different perspective.
Where has the humanity gone? Climate change is manifesting itself every day in some or other part of the world.
These poor people, just trying to live and look after their families, totally powerless in the face of what the climate is doing to them, dependent on the charity and goodwill of others.
And on the other hand, you have the like of Putin and Johnson, selfish, power hungry men, totally oblivious to the suffering they are causing to the people around them.
I fear for the future of the world and if there is a God, I hope that he balances things out for all of mankind, and soon.
@Mary Walshe: We can’t wait to have perfect leaders or perfect climate or even for a god to do something. People are dying right now and we can change that Right now all those people need is food and surely you and i and everyone else can do that. I’m glad they can depend in a little way on their fellow man to help them ,ie charities. So until that better world comes let’s just put our hands in our pockets and help. That’s humanity, in action! It’s in our control.
Ever since I was a little boy and that was not yesterday, there has been famine and suffering in Africa. Charities have applied much needed ‘plasters’ to each problem but the problems continue. Politicians have bled their people dry and created vast wealth for themselves in the process and local politicians have used their positions in well paid jobs in charities as stepping boards to better paid jobs in politics, where they promote themselves and forget about the charities. Donations, much of which go, not to those in need but to CEO’s salaries and collectors commission. A radical approach has to be taken and focused on the political systems within those countries by those World bodies i.e. the U.N. so little starving girls can plan for their long term future. Charities know that without tackling the politicians/U.N. etc they, albeit unintentionally, prolong the little girls suffering and lack of hope. Plasters won’t prevent hunger. These people deserve better.
@Barrycelona: Very true. But also, what kind of person has numerous kids knowing that some or all of them will die from malnutrition or starvation because they can’t take care of them.
@Jim Smith: Poverty!! Just like Ireland in pre war times. It was inevitable that several children would die and that was one of the reasons people had such large families. Poorer families have always had more children. The more children that survived, the greater chance of a bigger ‘ income’. Men also have a lot to answer for, in the way they used and treated women, even in today’s World
@Jim Smith: Poverty!! Just like Ireland in pre war times. It was inevitable that several children would die and that was one of the reasons people had such large families. Poorer families have always had more children. The more children that survived, the greater chance of a bigger ‘ income’. Men also have a lot to answer for, in the way they used and treated women, even in today’s World.
@Barrycelona: Well no matter how poor I was, I wouldn’t have many children knowing that I couldn’t feed all of them and that some will die because I might get more money. That’s sick. The thing is that the Africans that I work with agree with me. The media seems to portray Africans as helpless sadists. Many are highly educated and intelligent people who care if their children live or die.
Why is this under ‘Ukraine’ news?
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