Yahoo News Jo Cox always loved a good party. Let's honour her with a massive celebration of Britain's diversity and unity
It is now more than eight months since my wife Jo was murdered on the streets of her constituency of Batley and Spen. Although I’m told that time will heal, those months have not dulled the pain or lessened the chasm at the heart of our family.
For much of the time I feel like I am still in shock, that I have yet to take on board the enormity and the permanence of what has happened. By instinct, I still regularly start typing text messages to Jo; to tell her what time I’ll be back, what I’ve been up to or when something funny happens ... make a mental note to tell Jo at the end of the day.
The suddenness, brutality and absurdity of her murder make the shock all the more profound. But confronted with this pain I, Jo’s family, and our friends have resolved to channel that grief into something more positive. Not because we are particularly brave or resilient people – we are not – but because we know it is what Jo would have wanted us to do.
And what Jo would have wanted us to do now, more than ever, is to work to bring our communities closer together.
That’s where Jo’s politics started on the streets of Batley, West Yorkshire. She believed that closer ties – where we know our neighbours, invest in our communities and are able to keep an eye out for each other’s children – aren’t some throwback to the 1950’s but are the cornerstone of life in our country today.
Jo felt that this closeness was under threat from a whole range of things, whether it was the social media bubbles that push us deeper into our own echo chambers, or the changing nature of economics, leading to more insecure and atomised working environments, or the extremists, of all sorts, who fixate on difference and who seek to divide us.
Jo said in her maiden speech in the House of Commons in 2015 that she believed that there was more that unites us than divides us, even in as diverse a place as Batley.
But she worried that we find too few opportunities to focus on what binds us and to celebrate it.
Whether it is elections, referendums or social media sparring, we find plenty of opportunities to talk about things that we disagree with each other on, but far too few occasions to celebrate the things that bring us together. So today, with the support of the Duchess of Cornwall, we are setting out our plans.
Jo was always ambitious, not for herself but for what could be done. She didn’t believe in putting anything on to the “too difficult” pile. I hope it is fitting, therefore, that what we announce today is both bold and purposeful.
Above all, I hope that the occasion can help fulfil the pledge that I made at the time of her death to fight the hatred that killed Jo and advance the work that she was doing to try to bring our country back together.
In short, we hope that the weekend of June 17-18 will see the biggest communal party in this country since the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012. Jo loved a party, so that is a good place to start. She was committed, both in her politics and in her life, to reaching out to others and healing divisions. So that is where we hope to end up.
Put simply, we are asking communities to come together to celebrate all that we have in common. How they chose to do this will be entirely up to them. It might be a street party, a shared barbecue, a bake-off competition or a simple picnic in the park.
While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.
Jo Cox
We’re calling it The Great Get Together and the hope is that millions of people will take part in some way over the weekend.
Already the number and variety of organisations backing the idea reflects all that is best in our great, diverse and exhilarating country.
Those who have already pledged their support range from the Women’s Institute to the RNLI, with the Scouts and Guides movement, the Royal British Legion, Glastonbury Festival, the Countryside Alliance, the TUC, football’s Premier League, Amnesty International and the RSPB.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has also given the project his blessing. The Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, will be attending our launch today at Clarence House (the London residence of the Prince of Wales). Leaders of all faiths have responded enthusiastically to the message of togetherness and optimism encapsulated by the idea.
The Big Lunch, the organisation that helped make the Diamond Jubilee such a success and which has been encouraging people to sit down and eat with their neighbours every year since 2009, is lending its experience and expertise.
With events in every corner of the country, on village greens, city streets and at some of the nation’s most famed venues, the Great Get Together will be a truly national moment.
First and foremost, we hope it will be enjoyable, just a chance for communities to come together and have fun. But we also hope it will give us a chance to reassert what unites us as a country, as a nation – the values of community, of tolerance of baking and of parties.
The reason I am so optimistic is not because of our capacity to organise this (we have none) or the brilliance of the idea (breaking bread together is hardly original), it’s because I think there is a national mood that is crying out for this.
I believe that people are sick of the emphasis placed upon our divisions, along with political extremism and the nastiness of the public debate at this time.
People are looking for an chance to bring our communities together. That is what we hope the Great Get Together will become.
In her New Year message, Theresa May observed that: “As the fantastic MP Jo Cox, who was tragically taken from us last year, put it: 'We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us’.”
The year 2017, the Prime Minister said, was an opportunity to move forward and to “bring this country together, as never before”.
My hope, indeed my conviction, is that through the Great Get Together we can start to do exactly that.
To offer to host an event or to find out what’s happening in your area go to www.greatgettogether.org
