A decade after her sister was brutally murdered for her political views, Kim Leadbeater had hoped the country might have turned its back on the hatred and division that took Jo Cox’s life. Instead, the Labour MP says, it has only got worse.
Ten years ago next week, on 16 June 2016, while Britain was locked in Brexit campaigning ahead of the referendum, Cox was shot and stabbed to death in the West Yorkshire village of Birstall, five minutes’ walk from where her younger sister still lives.
She was 41, a mother of two, and had been an MP for just over a year. Her killer, a 53-year-old with links to the National Front, shouted “Britain First” as he attacked her outside the library where she was about to hold a constituency surgery. She was the first sitting British MP to be killed in a quarter of a century.
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Leadbeater, 50, was a sports teacher and personal trainer when her sister was killed. Despite previously having no interest in standing for public office, she won the Batley and Spen by-election in 2021 and now represents Spen Valley following boundary changes.
