{"id":641152,"date":"2026-06-16T06:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T06:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/641152\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T06:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T06:26:08","slug":"division-in-uk-probably-worse-now-than-in-run-up-to-brexit-says-kim-leadbeater-jo-cox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/641152\/","title":{"rendered":"Division in UK probably worse now than in run-up to Brexit, says Kim Leadbeater | Jo Cox"},"content":{"rendered":"

Political hatred and division in the UK is probably worse now than during the Brexit<\/a> referendum, when Jo Cox was murdered, says Kim Leadbeater, Cox\u2019s sister who is now also a Labour MP.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the Guardian\u2019s Today in Focus podcast Leadbeater, who was elected to the same Yorkshire seat held by Cox in a 2021 byelection<\/a>, said everyone in public life had a responsibility to try and ease tensions.<\/p>\n

Referencing the response of some politicians to the murder of Henry Nowak, which was followed by disorder in Southampton<\/a>, Leadbeater said people should remember that those calling for division were \u201cin the minority\u201d but were very vocal.<\/p>\n

Other people, she argued, \u201chave got a duty to drown them out and tell the good stories of this country\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Jo was killed, there was a period where people said all the right things and said: we need to do things differently, we need more compassion, we need more understanding,\u201d said Leadbeater in an interview to mark the 10th anniversary of Cox\u2019s murder<\/a> by a far-right terrorist on 16 June 2016.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cAnd it was very short-lived. And sadly and regrettably, I think over the last decade, if anything, things are worse. And I think we have to be honest about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the anniversary approaching, Leadbeater said, it was time to \u201chave a look at how we can change that narrative\u201d.<\/p>\n

Leadbeater in her office at the Houses of Parliament in London. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau\/PA<\/p>\n

In comments marking 10 years since Cox\u2019s death, Keir Starmer said the values she had lived by \u2013 that \u201cwe have far more in common than that which divides us\u201d \u2013 were being tested anew.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cAt a time when those values are being tested, her legacy feels as vital and urgent as ever. The best way to honour her memory is to stand firmly against hatred and division, to bring communities together, and to show, through both big acts and small, the compassion, decency and solidarity that define our nation at its best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadbeater said the responsibility for that change lay with \u201ceverybody \u2026 including politicians and people in public office\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a voice,\u201d she added. \u201cWe\u2019re very lucky to have a voice and to have a platform. But with that voice and with that platform comes a very significant level of responsibility.<\/p>\n

\u201cRecently we saw the horrific murder of that wonderful young man, Henry Nowak, and we saw his family\u2019s response, and they pleaded with people: please do not allow Henry\u2019s murder to be used to divide communities.<\/p>\n

double quotation mark\u2018I\u2019ve got no problem with people being angry. But you then have a choice what you do with the anger\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in that position, and I know what that feels like. It is unbelievably painful. But what you do not want to see is more anger and more hatred and more division on top of what you\u2019re already going through. Then the opposite happened. Only from certain quarters, though. You\u2019ve got to remember: those voices who are sowing the division are in the minority, and it doesn\u2019t always feel like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are very loud. But the rest of us then have got a duty to drown them out and tell the good stories of this country, call out bad things where they happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely, be angry. I\u2019ve got no problem with people being angry. I am really angry about what\u2019s happened to my life. I\u2019m pretty furious, to be honest. But you then have a choice what you do with the anger. And you can use that anger for good. You can use it to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cox was 41 and had been an MP for just over a year when she was fatally shot and stabbed by Thomas Mair<\/a>, a rightwing extremist, before a constituency surgery in the run-up to the Brexit referendum.<\/p>\n

In the interview, Leadbeater recalled that she had been collecting her car from a garage when she received a phone call saying Cox had been attacked.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cI remember getting in the car. My legs were shaking and I just couldn\u2019t stop shaking. And instinctively I knew this was not good. And I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s a sister thing. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s just an instinct thing. I don\u2019t know what it was, but I just knew straight away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember saying to my partner, who was saying, as people do: \u2018It\u2019s going to be OK, it\u2019s going to be OK.\u2019 And I just remember saying: \u2018I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be OK.\u2019 And I sort of knew.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leadbeater had not previously been involved in politics, but when Cox\u2019s replacement in the Batley and Spen seat, Tracy Brabin, stepped down after being elected West Yorkshire mayor, she was persuaded to stand for Labour, winning the byelection<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Leadbeater campaigning in 2021. Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Leadbeater said she had decided to stand after speaking with her parents and Cox\u2019s children, in part because she \u201cdid not want our community and our country to be defined by Jo\u2019s murder, because that isn\u2019t what our country looks like and that isn\u2019t who we are\u201d.<\/p>\n

The foundation set up in Cox\u2019s name campaigns in part on tackling loneliness, and Leadbeater said that with people like Mair, it was important to take account of what she called \u201cthe intersection between extremism and loneliness\u201d.<\/p>\n

This, however, should not be used as a reason to avoid challenging extreme beliefs, she argued. \u201cIf we reduce Jo\u2019s murder to an isolated act, then we are misunderstanding the context within which it happened. And we are misunderstanding and misrepresenting the views of the individual who killed Jo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is someone who was a far-right extremist. And we have to call extremism out, whatever that looks like. We have to have an honest conversation about that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Political hatred and division in the UK is probably worse now than during the Brexit referendum, when Jo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-641152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}