‘Britain must lead again’ – we can’t be afraid to intervene with force around the world says report written by MP Jo Cox
The Labour rising star had written a joint policy paper with Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat about the UK’s role in the world
BRITAIN must not be afraid to intervene with force around the world, according to a report written by the late MP Jo Cox.
In the weeks before her brutal murder last June, the Labour rising star had written a joint policy paper with Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat about the UK’s role in the world.
The Cost of Doing Nothing report was finished by a colleagues and warns the UK against “knee-jerk isolationism, unthinking pacifism and anti-interventionism” after the Iraq war.
It says that the world is more dangerous than ever and far from running away from challenges “Britain must lead again.”
The report will be launched today by ex-PM Gordon Brown and former Foreign Secretary Lord Hague by the Policy Exchange think tank.
Last night widower Brandon Cox said: “Jo was passionate about this piece of work.
“She felt deeply that the UK had a duty to stand up for civilians threatened by war and genocide.
“Her commitment wasn’t theoretical, it was forged by her experience of meeting survivors of genocide in Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan."
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“Last week I was clearing some of Jo’s things and found the first draft of the report that she had scribbled all over.
“At the top she had written ‘Britain must lead again’."
“Although she isn’t here to advance that argument, she’d be delighted that her colleagues and friends are able to do so in her stead.”
The report highlights examples of successful intervention, including the introduction of a no-fly zone in northern Iraq in 1991 to protect Kurds from air attacks waged by Saddam Hussein’s regime.
It also cites Nato’s action a year earlier to shield civilians in Kosovo from Slobodan Milosevic’s campaign of ethnic cleansing.
It sets out the “devastating consequences” of failing to take action, including in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and Syrian civil war, which has left an estimated half a million people dead.
Co author Tom Tugendhat said: “Britain has never been isolationist. It is in our national interest to be engaged with the world we helped shape.
“That means taking responsibility, and influencing events and intervening when necessary. To stand aside would not make us or the world safer, but leave us vulnerable to the whims of others rather than doing what we have always done - shape our own destiny and be a force for good.”