Jo Cox Quotes

Some say we need to be more patient. What we cannot, must not do is sit back and hope for the best.

The left should carve out a new long-term narrative about British foreign policy: one that puts human rights and the protection of civilians centre stage again. And one that reasserts our commitment to the responsibility to protect those most at risk of mass atrocity crimes. This isn’t really about being pro or anti-military intervention. Rather it’s a call to redefine the principles that will guide the decisions we take, as well as a commitment to then honour them.

Many people don’t realise just what a valuable lifeline libraries can be.

We owe it to everybody in our party to be honest about where we stand.

It bodes well for the future that young people are thinking so intently about political issues.

In recent years, Britain has withdrawn from the world. On Syria, on Europe, on Ukraine this government has been on the periphery: all victim of the same lack of long-term strategic thinking about British foreign policy and the absence of a moral compass. It is time for the left to revive its ethical foreign policy and carve out a new long-term narrative that puts human rights and the protection of civilians centre stage once again.

I don’t think that maternal and child health is a global priority. The health and welfare of mothers and their children received unprecedented international attention in 2010, but not all Governments were involved and other issues subsequently knocked this issue off the top slot. For those Governments who did make specific policy and resource commitments, the role of civil society is to work hard to get them to deliver. However, to see a truly seismic shift in the life chances of mums-to-be and their babies, Governments — rich and poor — must tackle inequality, especially gender but also income.

I don’t believe there will be a military solution to this conflict but I do believe there will be a military component to it. The vast majority of the fighting will be done by people from the region and by Syrians themselves, but that doesn’t mean that the UK shouldn’t play a role.

After the horror of 9/11 ‘interventionism’ was increasingly expressed through the paradigms of ‘security’ or ‘counter terrorism’, rather than being grounded firmly in the protection of civilians. And then Labour’s support for military action in Iraq distorted a worthy principle with such devastating impact. The legacy of Iraq – an intervention I was wholly opposed to because it was not fundamentally about protecting civilians – still hangs over us. But Labour can no longer be paralysed by Iraq. We need to learn from its many lessons without forgetting the equally important lessons of Bosnia or Rwanda.

The civil war in Syria is the worst humanitarian tragedy of our generation and one that our government, and the world, is failing to deal with adequately.

I always back UN action where we can find it, but I do not think it should be a limit to our help. There have been multiple UN resolutions that say [to] Assad: stop killing indiscriminately your own citizens.

No matter what our humanitarian response is to this crisis, it will never be enough. It cannot end the conflict.

It’s not about creating an equal country, but it is about stopping the development of an underclass cut off from the rest of society. This focus could be a straight forward set of things like a living wage, supporting more effective pathways into work and an effective benefits system.

While I do not believe that there is a purely military solution to this conflict, I do believe that there will be a military component to any viable solution.

We both nominated Corbyn for leader last year. We have never had cause to doubt his commitment to society’s most disadvantaged and to Labour’s values – a commitment we all share. But we have come to regret that decision.