Husband of murdered MP says social cohesion is a ‘national emergency’

Rosie Shead, Press Association

The husband of murdered MP Jo Cox has urged politicians to treat “social cohesion” as a “national emergency”.

Labour MP Ms Cox was shot and stabbed by neo-Nazi Thomas Mair in her Batley and Spen constituency on June 16 2016, days before the EU referendum.

Writing in the Observer ahead of the 10th anniversary of his wife’s death, Brendan Cox said he had “tried to remain optimistic” since Ms Cox was killed, but currently believes “our country is in real peril”.

Mr Cox wrote that there has been an “accumulation of factors which have played into the hands of extremists”, adding: “Stagnating living standards and cost-of-living pressures, algorithmic social media that exacerbates our divisions, the long-term degradation of community infrastructure, policy failure on everything from immigration to growth, hostile states externally and dangerous extremists internally.”

He said: “There are lots of policies that need to change if we are going to grip this crisis – from reforming social media to changing school admissions, investing in connecting institutions to rebuilding high streets.

“But more than just policy, our politics needs to change.

“Social cohesion should be treated as the national emergency that it has now become.

“It threatens our democracy, it is already being weaponised by hostile states and unless we address it as a priority it will make it impossible for us to govern ourselves effectively, let alone fight wars to defend ourselves.”

Mr Cox wrote: “Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have countenanced that large sections of our Jewish community would be living in fear following attacks on their synagogues and stabbings in the street.

“I wouldn’t have believed that we would have seen the biggest far-right march in British history with speakers calling for violence, for the pulling-down of non-Christian places of worship and performers wearing bacon to ‘keep Muslims at bay’.

“I wouldn’t have believed that the awful killing of an innocent young man would be used by some to denigrate the entire Sikh community or that gangs in Belfast would be going house to house setting fire to homes based on the colour of the occupant’s skin.”

This week, Ms Cox’s sister, Labour MP Kim Leadbeater, urged people not to “create chaos” as she branded racist and violent scenes in Northern Ireland which saw homes set alight “devastating”.