Jo Cox death: Luton South MP pays tribute to '˜incredible talent'

Gavin Shuker has paid tribute to murdered MP Jo Cox, who he has called an '˜incredible talent'.
Labour MP Jo CoxLabour MP Jo Cox
Labour MP Jo Cox

In a post on his Facebook page, the MP for Luton South has described his dismay following the fatal attack on Mrs Cox.

The mother-of-two and MP for Batley and Spen was shot and stabbed in Birstall, West Yorkshire, yesterday.

A 52-year-old man has been arrested.

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Remembering his colleague, Mr Shuker has said that Mrs Cox, 41, was an “incredible talent” and a “hard working, committed, human, trying to live with some kind of purpose”.

He wrote: “I knew Jo a little and we were friendly, but we had never spoken of our history before coming to the Commons.

“I read yesterday, how she went to university - to Cambridge - from a family that didn’t do that kind of thing; and how the experience and the people she had met had knocked the stuffing out of her; but that she had come back, changed, and eventually into the Commons.

“It mirrored my own experience, and I smiled for a moment, because I realised why I felt a connection with her and was drawn to her and something from this whole retched senseless day finally made sense and I sobbed alone in my kitchen because she will never know.”

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Mr Shuker added his worries over “damn ugly” politics seen in recent months.

He said: “I fear the past few months have stirred up something that is difficult to walk back from - a legitimisation of xenophobia and a kind of identity politics that is deeply visceral.

“It will leave the seeds of anger and bitterness and we will need an exceptionally gifted generation of leaders to bring something good from it.

“I’m so deeply troubled by what is happening and I know I’m not the only one.”