MPs Pay Emotional Tributes To Jo Cox

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The Labour MP was killed in her constituency last week

MPs and Peers have been paying tribute to Jo Cox who was killed in her constituency of West Yorkshire last Thursday.

The MPs - all wearing white roses, packed the House of Commons and Speaker John Bercow said they had gathered in ''heartbreaking sadness.''

A red and white rose were placed on Mrs Cox's usual seat on the Labour benches. Her family listened from the public gallery as speakers remembered her.

Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn said: '' We have lost one of our own and society as a whole has lost one of our very best.''

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, described the MP for Batley and Spen as '' a voice of compassion whose boundless energy lit up the lives of all who knew her and saved the lives of many she never met.''

Many MPs were in tears as their colleagues spoke of their friend Jo a ' truly exceptional woman.'

The Ealing Central and Acton MP, Rupa Huq, says she has been overwhelmed with messages of sympathy and support since the events last week.

Ms Huq became an MP in the same intake last year and said:'' I did know her well enough to call a friend, was stunned into silence on hearing the awful news and the way it unfolded. We were candidates together before the election at Labour party meetings, then we were elected together.

''We were following a trajectory as ''class of 2015'' together where we agonised about commons things; the nomination of Jeremy Corbyn, intervention in Syria, getting home after voting to be there for kids' bedtimes - only recently they hosted all the Labour 2015ers on their boat after votes and everyone was saying it should be annual. Now this has been cruelly curtailed, so early for someone who had so much to give, was a principled doughty fighter for many causes and was a genuinely nice human being.''

Ms Huq says, like many MPs she has been subject to nasty online abuse and has revealed that police are investigating an email 'semi' death threat, but says she won't let it interfere with her work.

In a column for The Guardian Ms Huq says she will carry on as normal - just as Jo Cox would have wanted.

Jo Cox should have been celebrating her 42nd birthday this week (Wednesday 22nd June ).

Southall Labour MP Virendra Sharma has announced there will a candlelit vigil outside Southall Town Hall on that day at 6pm.

He said: '' "Jo was a passionate woman, truly committed to helping her constituents and the most vulnerable around the world. She was murdered doing her job, and what she loved, being a fantastic representative for her home. We will all miss her deeply and her loss has been felt greatly."

Yesterday thousands gathered in Trafalgar Square for a moving memorial in which her husband, Brendan, spoke emotionally.

He described his wife as “the best mum that any child could wish for. And wish we do, to have her back in our lives.” He said he and the children had spoken every day since her death about “the things we will miss, the memories we will cherish. We try to remember not how cruelly she was taken from us, but how unbelieveably lucky we were to have her in our lives for so long.”

 

Thomas Mair, 52, from Birstall faces charges of murder, grievous bodily harm,possession of a firearm with intent to commit an indictable offence and possession of an offensive weapon.

He has been remanded in custody and will appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Thursday.

 

20th June 2016