Why a decade of division led to destruction on British streets – again

Vehicles set on fire earlier this week by protesters on Lendrick Street in Belfast (Picture: PA/PA Wire)

On June 16, 2016, the Labour MP Jo Cox was walking to meet her constituents in Batley & Spen when she was murdered in the street by an attacker with links to the far right.

It’s hard to believe almost 10 years have passed since that day, but the anniversary will come on Tuesday. This afternoon, Sir Keir Starmer – who was first elected to Parliament at the same time as Cox – hosted a Great Get Together in Downing Street to mark it.

The death of Jo Cox should have been the low point for divisive politics in the UK. But we all know how the past decade has gone – well, just look at the past two weeks.

‘Naturally, now that we’ve hit that 10-year mark, we’re doing a lot of reflecting and thinking back to the promises that were made 10 years ago,’ Olivia Field, the chief executive of the Jo Cox Foundation, told me.

‘We’ll all remember how much Jo’s murder shocked and devastated the nation during what was a really tense period for most people.

‘But what happened in the immediate aftermath was really quite incredible – people put aside their differences, they came together, they chose connection over division for a short period of time.’

Thousands attended a public memorial event in Trafalgar Square on what would’ve been Cox’s 42nd birthday, on June 22, 2016(Picture: Dan Kitwood/Getty)

A short period of time, indeed. Just one week later, the UK voted to leave the European Union and the stage was set for several more years of bitter political acrimony.

As Brexit dropped down voters’ lists of priorities, immigration rose up, while a deepening resentment towards status quo politics splintered the party landscape. In October 2021, another MP – Sir David Amess – was killed, this time by an Isis sympathiser.

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‘Whether you’re a politician or a professional, or in your role as a friend or family member, many of us made promises to address division and hate and foster unity and connection,’ said Olivia.

‘When we look at where we are as a country right now, it is hard to say with complete honesty that we’ve kept those promises. People are feeling more divided than ever.’

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It feels especially cruel that the lead-up to the anniversary of Cox’s death should be dominated by two incidents that threaten to tear the UK’s social fabric a little further.

The sentencing of Henry Nowak’s killer sparked violence in Southampton. Then, the horrifying knife attack in Belfast prompted this week’s riots, in which residents of the Northern Irish capital appear to have been targeted in their homes simply based on their race.

Both ‘protests’ were stoked by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a man who represents everything Jo Cox opposed in his thirst for hatred and thuggery.

And yet – there were flashes of Cox’s spirit where it mattered most.

After her meeting with Henry Nowak’s family, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X: ‘They are a family who have friends across faith and race, and so did Henry. His family want his memory to help bring our society together.’

Yesterday, the family of Belfast stabbing victim Stephen Ogilvie said in a statement: ‘We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including in our healthcare system and hospitality sector, and we depend on them to make our country work. We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility.’

Two families facing unimaginable pain, both with the same message: people need to come together. Above all, as Jo Cox said in her first Parliament speech in 2015, we have more in common than that which divides us.

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