It’s a decade since the MP for Batley and Spen was killed by a far-right extremist. Her sister, Kim Leadbeater, who took over her parliamentary seat, explains what lessons are still to be learned.
The Tragic Event
Jo Cox was the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, the place she had grown up and had known her whole life. She was firmly pro-Europe, a passionate campaigner for social justice, and the mother of two young children, aged five and three. On 16 June 2016, at the height of a toxic Brexit campaign, she was murdered by a far-right extremist. He shot and stabbed her several times outside Birstall library in West Yorkshire, shouting: “This is for Britain.” She was 41.
Legacy and Reflection
Her sister, Kim Leadbeater, and her family set up the Jo Cox Foundation in her honour, and Leadbeater took on her former constituency. A decade later, with far-right ideas increasingly mainstream and far-right violence more common, Leadbeater tells Nosheen Iqbal what lessons we can learn from the tragedy.
