Leeds MP Jo Cox dies after shooting

The mother-of-two was attacked in her constiuency

Published 16th Jun 2016

Labour MP Jo Cox has died after being shot and stabbed in the street outside her constituency advice surgery.

The mother of two children, aged three and five, was attacked at lunchtime on Thursday in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

A man was arrested near the scene soon after the attack.

The MP's husband Brendan said: Today is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. More difficult, more painful, less joyful, less full of love.

I and Jo's friends and family are going to work every moment of our lives to love and nurture our kids and to fight against the hate that killed Jo.

Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it everyday of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people.

She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her.

Hate doesn't have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous.

Jo would have no regrets about her life, she lived every day of it to the full.''

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said the country would be in shock at the horrific murder'' of the MP, who was amuch loved colleague''.

The killing shocked Westminster and led to the suspension of campaigning in the EU referendum.

Prime Minister David Cameron said: The death of Jo Cox is a tragedy. She was a committed and caring MP. My thoughts are with her husband Brendan and her two young children.''

Ms Cox was elected to the seat of Batley and Spen at the last general election in 2015.

She was a Remain supporter in the referendum and both official campaigns have suspended their operations as a mark of respect following the attack on her.

She has two children with husband Brendan, who shortly after the attack tweeted a picture of her next to the River Thames, where they lived in a houseboat.

She graduated from Cambridge University in 1995 and worked as an adviser for former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah, and Baroness Kinnock.

Ms Cox was a vocal advocate for the victims of the Syrian civil war and abstained in last autumn's contentious vote on allowing British military action in Syria.

Mr Cox, a former advisor to ex-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, spent Wednesday campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU.

He posted photographs of himself and the couple's children travelling along the Thames in a dinghy during a counter-protest against a pro-Brexit flotilla of vessels.