Diolch, Lywydd. I never met Jo Cox, but I’m sure I’m not alone in identifying with aspects about what we’ve heard about her, and with some of the politics that she represented. Rather than use my words today, I’d prefer to use hers. In her maiden speech in Westminster, Jo Cox MP said,

‘Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.’

Now, it remains to be proven beyond all reasonable doubt whether she was killed for holding these beliefs, but it seems to me that the most fitting tribute we can pay to this woman is to remember her words and, in her memory, for all us to work for a society and a politics that is free from hate.