Prime Minister leads tributes to MP Jo Cox and her ‘tireless fighting spirit’ after she was brutally murdered
Both sides have been paying their respects to the 41-year-old mother-of-two
DAVID Cameron yesterday mourned the loss of murdered MP Jo Cox and said: “We have lost a great star.”
The married mother of two, who was elected only last May, was already seen as a potential Labour Government minister by many in Westminster.
The Prime Minister said that her shocking death yesterday was “absolutely tragic and dreadful news” and paid tribute to the MP’s tireless fighting spirit.
After calling a halt to EU referendum campaigning, he said: “She was a committed and caring MP. My thoughts are with Jo’s husband Brendan, their two children and wider family. We’ve lost a great star.
“She had a big heart and people are going to be very, very sad at what has happened.
“She was a very strong campaigning MP. She had taken a big interest in how we can look after Syrian refugees and do the right thing in our world.
“She was a star for her constituents, a star in Parliament and a star right across the House.”
Fiercely proud of her working-class roots, Jo, 41, said her experience at privileged Cambridge University had fuelled her desire to champion the vulnerable.
She worked for Oxfam before her election in May 2015 — when she wasted no time launching campaigns against Islamophobia and hate crime in her West Yorkshire constituency.
She also clashed with her party after calling for a UK “military component” in Syria.
In one outspoken blast, she lambasted Jeremy Corbyn for his “weak leadership, poor judgment and a mistaken sense of priorities”.
Jo was also campaigning to stay in the EU and warned in her local paper column last Friday that Brexit was “no answer to real concerns on immigration”.
She wrote that it was “fine to be concerned” about the issue but insisted leaving the EU “won’t solve the problem”.
Her murder after meeting constituents yesterday appeared to be planned because she had only one surgery listed this month.
She lived during the week on the Thames in a barge with charity boss husband Brendan, 37, son Cuillin, five, and daughter Lejla, three.
They returned mainly at weekends to their rented home in her Batley and Spen constituency. In 2011, Jo posted a picture of her boat online alongside the caption: “This is my view every morning.”
The couple were also members of a “co-operative” in Wapping, East London, alongside artists, film directors and architects.
But the MP was proud of her roots growing up in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire.
She spent her summers working as a packer in a toothpaste and hairspray factory in Leeds.
Dad Gordon also worked there while mum Jean was a school secretary. Jo’s sister Kim has a job at Bradford College.
Jo would go on to study at Cambridge but revealed in an interview how her background made it tough. However, it also sparked her interest in politics.
She said: “I never really grew up being political or Labour.
“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.
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“To be honest, my experience at Cambridge really knocked me for about five years.”
She graduated in 1995 and went to work for Oxfam, rising to become the charity’s head of policy.
She worked as an adviser to Sarah Brown, wife of ex-PM Gordon Brown, and Baroness Kinnock. She was also chairwoman of the Labour Women’s Network and pushed Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham to probe cuts at a local hospital.
Keen mountain biker Jo cycled to work in Westminster each morning, where she was tipped by many as a future Government minister.
Fellow Labour MP John Mann said of her last year: “She is one of the stars of the new intake.”
She and her family were due to celebrate her 42nd birthday next Wednesday. In February 2012, she posted a touching online message, headed: “Simple things.”
She wrote: “Wednesdays are one of the days I’m with my son, Cuillin.
“We’d played wild animals, eaten playdough, pretended to be train drivers and built two dens but still had time to kill before swimming.
“We’d walked into an old church yard to check out the squirrels and pigeons but were both suddenly captivated by swirling leaves trapped by a corner of the building.
“The icy wind kept blowing them dramatically round and round and the piping at the side of the building whistled along as they twirled.
“My one-year-old pointed and giggled and we knelt for ten minutes watching them dance.
“Two strangers walked by and smiled at us. That really lovely, knowing smile that people suddenly started giving me when I became a mum. When we strolled away we both had happy faces, as if we’d just shared a secret.”
REFERENDUM CAMPAIGN IS PUT ON HOLD
By TOM NEWTON DUNN
POLITICAL leaders last night suspended all Referendum campaigning for at least 36 hours out of respect to Jo Cox.
Battle bus tours were halted yesterday afternoon as news of the horror emerged.
David Cameron pulled out of a rally in Gibraltar and flew back to London.
Leave boss Boris Johnson halted his tour of Norfolk where he was backed by Steve Hilton, a former adviser to the PM.
When it emerged Jo had died, the PM said: “It’s right we’re suspending campaigning activity.”
Downing Street’s Union flag flew at half mast last night and an order was sent to all government departments to follow suit.
Chancellor George Osborne and Bank of England Governor Mark Carney scrapped speeches at the Mansion House dinner to pay personal tributes to Jo.
BBC1 cancelled last night’s Question Time and following politics show This Week because both were to focus on the EU vote.
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