Jo Cox

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Helen Joanne Cox (née Leadbeater; 22 June 1974-2016) was a British politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Batley and Spence from May 2015 to her death in June 2016.

She was a Labour Party candidate. Cox, a born in Batley, West Yorkshire, studied Social and Political Sciences at Pembroke College, Cambridge, Cambridge.

She began working as a political assistant in 2001 and was on staff with Oxfam, where she became the head of strategy and advocacy at Oxfam GB in 2005.

After the previous occupant, Mike Wood, decided not to run in 2015, she was chosen to contest the Batley and Spen parliamentary seat.

With an increased majority, she retained the Labour seat.

Cox founded and chaired the Friends of Syria, an all-party political party. Cox was shot and stabbed several times in Birstall, where she had been scheduled to have a constituency surgery on June 16, 2016.

Thomas Mair, a far-right activist, was found guilty of her murder in November and sentenced to life in prison with a whole life term.

Personal life

Cox was married to Brendan Cox from June 2009 to her death in June 2016. During Gordon Brown's premiership, he was an advisor on international development, whom she met while working for Oxfam. They had two children. The Cox family divided their time on the Thames between their constituency home and a converted Dutch barge moored near Tower Bridge in London. Cox, a secular humanist and trade unionist, was a promoter of the British Humanist Association and a supporter of both GMB and Unison.

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Early life and career beginnings

Cox was born Helen Joanne Leadbeater in Batley, West Yorkshire, England, on June 22nd, 1974, to Jean, a school secretary, and Gordon Leadbeater, a toothpaste and hairspray factory worker.

She was born in Heckmondwike and attended Heckmondwike Grammar School, a state grammar school, where she was the head girl. She worked packing toothpaste during the summers. Cox studied at Pembroke College, Cambridge, first studying Archaeology and Anthropology before moving to Social and Political Science, graduating in 1995. She later attended the London School of Economics.

Following her graduation from Pembroke College, Cox served as an advisor to Labour MP Joan Walley from 1995 to 1997. She then took over Key Campaigns in Europe (1998-99), a pro-European pressure group, before heading to Brussels to serve two years as an assistant to Glenys Kinnock, the wife of former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and later a Member of the European Parliament.

Cox served with Oxfam and Oxfam International from 2001 to 2009, first in Brussels as the group's trade reform leader and then as head of Oxfam International's humanitarian campaigns in New York City in 2007. While there, she contributed to the publication of For a Safer Tomorrow, Ed Cairns' book that explores the changing nature of the world's humanitarian policies. Oxfam's work in Darfur and Afghanistan, in which she worked with marginalized groups, influenced her political thinking.

Cox's charitable work culminated in her role as advising Sarah Brown, the wife of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was leading a movement to eliminate deaths in pregnancy and childbirth. Cox was the head of the Maternal Mortality Campaign, which was funded by Brown and her husband from 2009 to 2011. Cox spent the next year as a strategist, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and as the head of strategy at the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood. She founded UK Women, a research center aimed at satisfying women's needs in the United Kingdom, where she served as the CEO in 2013. Cox worked with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2014 to 2015.

From 2010 to 2014, Cox served as the national chair of the Labour Women's Network, as well as a strategic advisor to the Freedom Fund, an anti-slavery group. She was also on the board of Burma Campaign UK, a human rights non-governmental group.

Political career

Cox was nominated by the Labour Party to run against the Batley and Spen seat that was vacated by Mike Wood at the 2015 general election. She was chosen as a contender from an all-women shortlist. Between 1983 and 1997, the Batley and Spen seat was a Conservative marginal, but Cox won the seat with 43.2% of the vote, effectively lifting Labour's majority to 6,051. On June 3, 2015, Cox gave her maiden speech in the House of Commons, highlighting the community's economic challenges and encouraging the government to rethink its approach to economic recovery. She was one of 36 Labour MPs who nominated Jeremy Corbyn as a candidate in the 2015 Labour leadership election, but she said she did do so to bring him on the list and spark a broad debate. Liz Kendall ran for the office in the 2016 primary and later announced that she and fellow MP Neil Coyle regretted nominating Corbyn.

Cox was looking for a solution to the Syrian Civil War. She co-authored an article in The Observer in October 2015, arguing that British military forces could help achieve an ethical solution to the conflict, which also included the establishment of civilian safe havens in Syria. Cox founded Friends of Syria, an all-party political group, taking the Chair during that month. Cox abstained in the Commons vote in December to endorse UK military action against ISIL in Syria because she believed in a more comprehensive plan that would include combatting President Bashar al-Assad and his "indiscriminate barrel bombs." "We may eventually alienate even more of the Sunni population, leading them to Isis." So I've decided to abstain. I am not opposed to airstrikes per se, but I am unable to encourage them in the absence of a strategy. I believe in taking steps to fix Isis, but I don't think it will be effective in isolation.

"The armed defender" could be doing more to assist the victims and leverage its global reach to bring an end to the Syrian crisis," Andrew Grice of The Independent said. "These unarmed volunteers risk their lives to assist anyone in need, regardless of faith or political party," Cox wrote to the Nobel Committee in February 2016. The committee accepted the nomination and gained the support of twenty of her peers and many celebrities, including George Clooney, Daniel Craig, Chris Martin, and Michael Palin. Members of Canada's New Democratic Party, who urged Stéphane Dion, Canada's Foreign Minister, to sacrifice for Canada, was among the nominations.

Cox, a supporter of the Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East, has called for the lifting of the blockade of Gaza. "I think this is a gross attack on democratic rights," the government's attempt to limit the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign. Not only is it right to boycott unethical businesses, but it is also our right to do so." Following the unveiling of the Chilcot Report into the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Cox was working with Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat on a study that would be published. Tugendhat wrote in The Times after her death: "While Britain must learn the painful lessons of Iraq, we must not allow the pendulum to swing toward knee-jerk absolutism, ideological pacifism, and institutional anti-interventionism." She worked with Tell MAMA on The Geography of Anti-Muslim Hatred, an investigation into cases of Islamophobia; the publication was dedicated to her at its launch on June 29th. Two parliamentary concerns pertaining to the Yemeni crisis were submitted by Cox to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on June 14 by Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Tobias Ellwood, after her death. "This inquiry was tabled before the sad death of the honourable lady, but the government's response should be posted on the public record," The Guardian said on July 1st.

In the run-up to the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union, Cox was a Remainer. Both sides of the EU referendum campaign were postponed for the day as a mark of respect after her death. Two political debate programmes scheduled to air this evening, including questions relating to the referendum, have been cancelled by the BBC.

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