The selective compassion of Jo Cox

Jo Cox wanted to make the world a better place and it was a cause for which she was willing to travel halfway across the globe. Whether consoling rape victims in Darfur or bombed out villagers in Afghanistan, it seemed the jet-setting international aid worker was rarely far from the action.

Lately it had been the struggle of Syrian war refugees to get to the West that touched her heart, and their plight was a subject she returned to again and again after becoming a Member of Parliament. It seemed there was no victims anywhere she could not empathise with.

Except, perhaps, with one striking omission.

And that would be the White child rape victims of Muslim grooming gangs in her own back yard. For her West Yorkshire constituency is near the epicentre of the Muslim child rape epidemic that has been sweeping the Labour heartlands of northern England, largely ignored or covered up by social services workers, police and politicians.

For it is a striking omission that of all the subjects she enjoyed sounding off on, this world-famous crisis affecting the poorest Whites on her doorstep was not one of them. One cannot help wonder if this shrewd silence was connected to the fact that her lavishly paid MPs job in the constituency of Batley and Spen largely depended on the support of the local Muslim community.

Co-incidentally, just as Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death outside her constituency office in Birstall last Thursday,  sentencing was about to take place at Leeds Crown Court  after a long trial involving a horrific case of Muslim child exploitation.

The court heard that in Halifax, eleven miles from Cox’s constituency, a vulnerable underage girl had been left to fend for herself at the age of 13 after her mother died.  This child ended up being preyed on by 100 Muslim males who plied her with alcohol and drugs. The girl — nominally in council care — was then passed  from house to house and from town to town as far away as Manchester and London. The girl described being filmed by Muslims on a mobile phone while being orally raped. She contracted an STD.  Some of the rapists were identified from CCTV which had been seized from the hotels she could remember, while others were caught because of DNA from stains on her clothing. The police said afterwords that the girl, one of two victims, had shown “immense courage and bravery in reporting these matters to the police and providing evidence.”

At the Leeds trial, only fifteen of the men were convicted.  Originally over a hundred were arrested and doubtless dozens of culprits walked free.  It was a lurid and horrific story but such hearings are so common these days, they  have become wearily familiar.

Nevertheless you would think this would be a issue that would enrage a feminist-minded, morally crusading MP.  But no, instead of fighting to defend the White girl victims of Muslim rape gangs, female Labour MPs have preferred to defend the Muslim community and deflect any criticism.  Or, like Jo Cox, they have chosen to ignore it completely. In her maiden speech, Jo Cox said that her community had been “deeply enhanced by immigration” but presumably child rape was not what she had in mind.

For it is a fact that northern female Labour MPs prefer to put their energies into endless nagging and barracking their White constituents over their hostility to the importation of foreign refugees. Many of them, like the Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, prefer to do a mental handstand and say that if you extrapolate child abuse across the entire population of Britain, then it is really White men who are the problem.

In the immediate aftermath of Jo Cox’s death politicians from all sides promised not to make the killing part of the referendum debate. And then proceeded to do just that. The killing got the full Charlie Hebdo treatment, with even the Prime Minister doing a passable imitation of a man beside himself with grief. Even Hilary Clinton, got into the act, and saw the opportunity to frame herself as a fighter against “extremism.”

The connection was immediately made to links to the right wing.  The media in full-throated pursuit, were not going to let small details such as contempt of court rules or an ongoing investigation stop them.

Tribute after tribute bore witness to Jo Cox’s uniqueness. But in reality, nothing could have been further from the truth.  In fact, women like Jo Cox are ten a penny across the West these days — bland, compliant functionaries who have been marinated in political correctness and are happy to regurgitate the platitudes and attitudes of their political masters. And are well-rewarded for doing so. Elizabeth Warren (AKA Pocahontas) in the US comes to mind.

She was that toxic combination of self-rightousness and entitlement which believed itself possessed of a special moral insight into the moral shortcomings of their own people. Never slow to parade her compassion, she was also calculating enough to help more dubious causes, as when she lent her name to a government minister who was lobbying for Britain to begin bombing in Syria.  Bombing and babies; it was all business for Jo Cox.

Hers was the typical smooth career path of the modern political cog. From her grammar school, where she was the Head Girl, she seamlessly moved onto an extended period at two universities before emerging as professional aid worker for Oxfam and Save the Children. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was another fashionable international development outfit in which she managed to wangle a position as “advisor.”

She certainly travelled extensively,  but to what extent did she get her hands dirty? Rather than mopping sweat-covered brows, her role as a policy consultant seemed to revolve swanning around seminars, conferences and committee rooms in Brussels and London. Networking, rather than counselling, seems the main skill in this field.

The safe Labour seat seems to have been a reward for acting as a bag-carrier for prominent political wives such as that of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a former Labour leader and Euro aristocrat Neil Kinnock. Her constituency seat had been represented by local White men for decades so an all-female shortlist had to be imposed on the local party to ensure an acceptable candidate could be given this plum.

It was a gilded lifestyle with a houseboat on the Thames beside Tower Bridge at which she hosted networking events for important left-wing women. There was a second house in her constituency which was a venue for a huge Solstice party each year.

The role of international aid worker is highly valued among a section of shrewd university-educated females.  It offers a particularly attractive combination of a good salary in an expanding sector, frequent foreign travel and high status among the do-gooding circles.

And then there was her husband Brendan Cox, who is also an international development consultant. While one can have all the sympathy in the world for someone left to bring up two children on his own, it would be remiss of me not to point out that he has had a rocky career in the development field.  He was forced out of a position at the Save the Children Fund after several women accused him of “acting inappropriately”; acutely embarrassing no doubt for a wife who was the “equalities and discrimination advisor” for a Labour Women’s Network.

He has since been jetting around Europe for the World Economic Forum. He is examining ways to combat the “populist opposition” to the “refugee” population transfer programme.  Among his findings are that the vote for nationalist parties is not important and that European populations are still willing to take in far more refugees.

The supportive constituencies are highly motivated but under-utilised. For example, 16% of people say they would open up their homes to refugees. More widely, 53% of the public say they would like to do more to help, of whom 27% declare that the reason they haven’t done more is they don’t know how to do so. If we can provide more effective ways for these constituencies to engage there is a large and highly motivated group who could effectively take on the mobilised populist right and provide a counter balance to their influence.

Demographic trends are on our side. In almost all countries, young people are more progressive than older people. In the US, UK and France, young people (18–34) are between three and four times more supportive than older people. In addition, people who know refugees and immigrants are much more likely to be supportive of them and of migration as a whole. As our societies become more diverse and immigration reaches more communities, more communities are likely to become less prejudiced and more supportive. Like the battle for LGBT rights, there could be a tipping point when debates stop being abstract and start to be based on personal experience.

We have great allies. If you were to design an ideal set of campaign allies you would want to unite labour unions and big business, faith groups and the fashion industry, football and public intellectuals. In most countries these groups are already supportive though under-leveraged. What is needed is a strategy to bring them together, reduce the political risk to them individually and increase their collective impact.

The refugee crisis and the wider migration debate are here to stay. We need to engage in them at the level of public debate as well as policy. If we do so effectively there is no reason we can’t quickly shift the debate back to the mainstream and in doing so not only help refugees and migrants, but also help marginalise the resurgent populist right. To do so we need to readjust our efforts to reflect that power on this issue is with the people.

The authorities are not going to let an opportunity like this go to waste. Tighter surveillance on social media seems a given which will delight MPs such as Luciana Berger no end.  Several MPs immediately contacted the police about alleged Twitter threats, and a round-up is in progress, In Devon and Cornwall a man has been charged with “malicious communication”.

Another MP who has demanded police protection is another woman who has turned her back on the native White population. Rachael Maskell who said she had received a threat the day before Jo Cox was killed.

Maskell achieved national notoriety several months ago when she demanded Britain, admit many more Syrian refugees.

“We need to shout more that 20,000 is not enough, 30,000 is not enough. We will keep going until we hit our saturation point because what does it matter if we have to wait another week for a hospital visit?

“Or if our class sizes are slightly bigger; or if our city is slightly fuller? What does it matter if things are slightly more challenging? If we have to pay a little bit more into the system? Surely it is worth it to see those lives being restored again.”

With the accused, Thomas Mair, having apparently put any doubts about his motivations to rest with his first words in court, it looks like we are in for an interesting time ahead.  And very grave implications for freedom of speech in Britain.   The recent publication of proposed new anti-extremism laws were not as bad as some anticipated — perhaps because the government were unable to produce any credible example of White extremist violence.

That could all be about to change now.

One consequence of the Jo Cox killing might be that it has derailed the Leave campaign in the forthcoming Euro referendum. The Leave campaign had seemed to be pulling ahead, but that has all changed now. The latest polls seem to show that that Remain campaign has caught up and is nosing ahead.