Amid the
Diana-fication, almost the beatification, of murdered backbench Labour MP Jo
Cox, it would be easy to lose sight of the fact that Thursday’s referendum is
simply that: it is not a General Election.
Judging by
the way the media has pitched the whole contest as a scrap between Prime
Minister David Cameron and Tory Rival Boris Johnson and UKIP leader Nigel
Farage, you’d be forgiven for thinking that if the majority vote is in favour
of leaving the EU, that will mean a change of resident at 10 Downing Street.
It won't. If the Leave
campaign wins the man tasked with the responsibility of starting the long
process of disengagement with Brussels won’t be either Mr Johnson or Mr Farage,
but Mr Cameron – if he decides to stay as Prime Minister until his second term
ends in 2020.
Daft as it
may be to state the obvious, I have a feeling that there are people out there
who think this is a first-past-the-post, winner-takes-all party political
battle. As others have pointed out elsewhere the ownership of the Referendum is
not the politicians but the public. Nor does it belong to the spectre of a
slain MP.
Jo Cox did
not die for democracy, she did not choose to martyr herself for the good of the
cause. As far as anybody knows she was picked on and attacked out of the blue.
If she had had a premonition of what was about to happen, I’m sure she would
have done her best to have avoided it, at the same time ensuring that nobody
else got hurt inadvertently.
I can understand
the desire to make a collective public expression of sadness, if it helps people
to deal with their anger, bewilderment or sorrow. But the immediate elevation
of this reportedly personable woman to ‘stardom’ in the parliamentary firmament
– first by the Prime Minister and then by sundry other politicians and
journalists – struck entirely the wrong note for me.
And if this
process continues when Parliament specially reconvenes on Monday I think public
sympathy might turn to irritation, not about Jo Cox but with those exploiting
her murder to say something sententious, not to say tendentious, about the
current state of democracy in this country and its representatives.
Remember, in
May 2008 – long before Jo Cox was elected to be an MP - the House of Commons
lost a High Court case to prevent public disclosure of MPs’ expenses.
Subsequently, these guardians of democracy tried to scupper proposed expenses
reforms.
They eventually
agreed to piece-meal reforms after forcing the Labour Government of Gordon
Brown to drop a proposal to scrap the allowance for second homes.
In May,
2009, The Daily Telegraph printed a long series of articles from leaked
computer discs highlighting some of the practices common in Parliament, such as
‘flipping’ homes to maximise expenses claims and changing the designation of
second homes to avoid paying Capital Gains Tax.
The public,
on the receiving end of austerity cuts, whose sons and daughters are killed in
foreign wars allegedly in defence of freedom and democracy, whose homes are
burgled and property stolen usually without any satisfaction of justice, tend
to have the same regard for politicians, in both Westminster and Brussels, that
they have for journalists and the groomers of children.
The memory
of Jo Cox’s life should be honoured. It should not be used as emotional
propaganda by those with another agenda.
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