Brendan Cox thanks the public for their support since Jo's death
The husband of MP Jo Cox has thanked their public for their "incredible" support since her death in Birstall last Thursday
The husband of MP Jo Cox has thanked their public for their "incredible" support since her death in Birstall last Thursday.
Brendan Cox said his wife had strong political views and worked throughout her life on the causes that were important to her as well as improving the lives of people in her area.
Brendan described the public reaction to her death as off the scale'' and had made areally important contribution'' to the healing process for the couple's two children. He indicated that he would like to see a female MP take Mrs Cox's former Batley and Spen seat, suggesting that would be lovely symbolism''. He went on to say his wife had concerns about the culture of politics around the world: *I think she was very worried that the language was coarsening, that people were being driven to take more extreme positions, that people didn't work with each other as individuals and on issues, it was all much too tribal and unthinking.* And she was particularly worried - we talked about this regularly - particularly worried about the direction of, not just in the UK but globally, the direction of politics at the moment, particularly around creating division and playing on people's worst fears rather than their best instincts. So we talked about that a lot and it was something that worried her.'' Asked whether he was concerned about people using her death in public debate, he said: She was a politician and she had very strong political views and I believe she was killed because of those views. I think she died because of them, and she would want to stand up for those in death as much as she did in life.''
Expressing his thanks for the incredible'' public support following her death, he said: *The two things that I've been very focused on is how do we support and protect the children, and how do we make sure that something good comes out of this.*
And what the public support and outpouring of love around this does, is it also helps the children see that what they're feeling and other people are feeling, that the grief that they feel, isn't abnormal, that they feel it more acutely and more painfully and more personally, but that actually their mother was someone who was loved by lots of people and that therefore, it's OK to be upset and it's OK for them to cry and to be sad about it.''