Jo Cox Event

Jo Cox Event

30th of July, 2020

Dear friends,

It's hard to believe but it will soon be a year since Jo was murdered.

In the past year, a lot has happened, but nothing that has begun to ease the pain or fill the gap that she has left in our lives - nevertheless we remain as determined as ever to try and make something positive come out of this.

As a parliamentary colleague of Jo's I wanted to let you know some of our plans for the anniversary of Jo's death before we announce them publicly later this week - and to ask for your help.

The basic plan is to mark the anniversary by asking communities and neighbours to come together, to share food and to celebrate what we hold in common. Jo's killing was aimed at dividing us - and we can imagine no better response to that than a public showing of unity. We hope to show that no matter what party your vote for, where you come from or how you voted in a referendum - there is more that unites us than divides us.

As such we will ask people to take part in The Great Get Together by holding events on the 17 and 18th of June (the 16th is the actual anniversary) from street parties and picnics to shared barbecues and community bake offs with the aim of building one of the UKs biggest ever community events.

We're teaming up with a large number of fantastic people and organisations to make this possible: The Big Lunch, 38 degrees, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Avaaz, Amnesty, the Chief Rabbi, Countryside Alliance , Help for Heroes​, HOPE not hate, Glastonbury, Mumsnet/Gransnet, NSPCC, Oxfam, Premier League, RNLI, RSPB, Save the Children, Stonewall, Tell MAMA, The Catholic Church for England and Wales, The Challenge, The Scouts, the Royal British Legion, Trade Union Congress, the Women's Institute and Girl Guides. Between us we expect to organise between 90,000 and 100,000 community events and hope than over ten million people will take part.

Members of parliament will play an absolutely critical role in making this as successful as possible and to start with I'd like to ask if you might do two things:

  1. Put the date in your diary and commit to attending a local event. Please let us know if you're happy to take part by emailing Iona Lawrence, the Director of the Jo Cox Foundation at [email protected]. She can also connect you with events in your constituency.
  2. You know your communities best - please take 5 minutes to forward this flyer to the top 10-20 individuals and organisations in your constituency who can make Great Get Togethers happen locally - from the leaders of your local faith groups through to head teachers, community businesses and the organisers who make amazing things happen every day.