I want to express my deepest sympathy to the family of Jo Cox. It is a terrible and tragic loss of a wonderful person and an attack on our democracy.
Jo was in her constituency, holding an advice surgery serving her constituents, as so many other MPs were doing today.
Most MPs genuinely want to serve and make people’s lives better; Jo was one such MP.
Colleagues have, over recent months speculated that at some point an MP would be the subject of such an attack, given the increasing climate of hate in which we operate. All too often this hate is manufactured and whipped up on social media, by political activists and by elements of the media, turning all MPs, even the best, into figures of hate.
What MPs say and do, is often twisted and distorted. Fantastical, warped claims are made and repeated over and over, until they become fact, creating anger and loathing in ordinary members of the public.
This ‘monstering’ by all forms of the media plays into the hands of sick fantasists, who hound MPs day and night, with howls of anti politics rage. Too often the media suggest that the people who do this are merely ordinary constituents expressing a view. They are not.
Ordinary members of the public would be deeply shocked, if they had even the smallest insight into the unrelenting hate and abuse that pours into the offices of MPs and their staff. The death threats are real. Knives are pulled on MPs in surgery.
Like Jo, most MPs are trying to do their best by their constituents. Like Jo, MPs have families, children, friends and loved ones.
To hound MPs on social media and other forms of media, creating fantasy hate figures, is not political discourse, nor is it free speech, or fair game. It harms our democracy and has truly tragic consequences. A desperately sad day for all who knew Jo Cox; a tragedy beyond words for her family.