Jo was one of the most kind, caring, and committed people I have had the privilege to know. She could also make herself a right royal pain in the backside if she profoundly disagreed with you; a lesson many political leaders learned too late, and to their cost.
I first met Jo when she was fresh out of university, when she worked for Glenys Kinnock MEP (at the time, known colloquially as the MEP for South Wales and Soweto because of her domestic and international work). Jo would engage me in conversation as I waited for Glenys – often about the appalling nature of my clashing ties, but more often about issues such as the current detention condition of Aung San Suu Kyi, or the changes happening so rapidly in South Africa.
Jo could chat to anyone, even me, because she loved people; she was cheeky, with a dry, sardonic humour, often aimed at herself. Jo could equally happily spend hours playing with refugee children in a camp, or engaging rather la-di-da intelligentsia in an international thinktank. It’s also why Jo, with her husband Brendan, spent their summer holidays working with war orphans in Sarajevo.
But wherever Jo was, she was always herself. Authentic. I never saw her put on airs and graces, nor speak down to anyone.
Jo was fearless. Or at least could make herself appear to be when it mattered. In the early 2000s, Jo was in her late 20s, and looked about 17. She had a very broad Yorkshire accent (much broader than mine, mind), yet was unanimously appointed to the head of Oxfam’s Brussels office, due to the power of her intellect, persuasion, and passion.
This meant regular meetings with the EU trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, and his coterie of powerful advisers. Mandelson, a man of sophisticated and urbane manner, quickly had to adjust his perception and approach to the meeting when feisty Jo, brimming with expert trade facts, gave him a masterclass in European trade policy, and how it must change to benefit the poor of the world.
We laughed together for hours afterwards, as we recollected the change in their expressions through the meeting, from warm but patronising condescension, to terror.
Jo could do this because she loved justice. She felt it in her guts. Jo was moved almost too much by the suffering she worked alongside in Darfur, Sudan. She devoted years of her life to the plight of refugees.
But she also knew how to pressure repressive governments that forced people to flee their homes. She put together a visit of eight global women leaders to Darfur, led by Mary Robinson with African economists and parliamentarians, and then organised their tour of the world’s capitals to put maximum international pressure on the regime in Khartoum from Washington DC, London, Paris, Brussels, and Berlin.
Power with love
And finally, Jo loved love. She knew in her bones its transformational power. Perhaps because she came from a loving family, and a close working class community in Leeds. She loved her kids with the same furious passion – dashing home from parliament to tuck them into bed at night, before dashing back for another late night vote.
And Jo’s politics were inspired by love. When she said in her maiden speech that “while we celebrate our diversity, we are far more united, and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us” she spoke of that love.
Jo’s politics embodied the great words of Martin Luther King: “Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” That was how Jo conducted herself as a leader at Oxfam, and as an MP in our democracy.
In this dark hour we live through, Mary Robinson wrote to us from Ireland saying: “A light can shine through when it has the integrity of everything Jo lived for.”
Let’s all make sure that happens.
Today would have been Jo Cox’s 42nd birthday. Celebratory events are being held around the world with the hashtag #MoreinCommon, taken from her maiden speech in parliament.
Phil Bloomer was Jo Cox’s boss at Oxfam. He is currently executive director at the Business and Human Rights Centre. This piece is extracted from a speech about Jo, given to a gathering of Oxfam workers, and republished on the Oxfam blog From poverty to power.
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