【1994 Archives】

994 Archiveshusband of slain MP Jo Cox is due to deliver Channel 4's Alternative Christmas message with a heartfelt warning against the rise of fascism, xenophobia, extremism and terrorism.

In the message, which is considered as an alternative to the Queen's annual Christmas Day address, Brendan Cox will urge people to "bring communities back together" in 2017 and "reach out to somebody that may disagree with us.

"Now is not a moment to shout louder into our echo chambers. It's a moment to reach out," he will say.

Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death in her constituency of Batley and Spen, in West Yorkshire, by neo-Nazi terrorist Thomas Mair in June, one week before the Brexit referendum.

Cox, who was 41 when she died, was a champion for Syrian child refugees and campaigned for women's rights around the world.

Brendan, who recorded the message on a converted Dutch barge, the family home he and Jo established on the river Thames, will say:

"Jo loved Christmas, the games, the traditions, the coming together of friends and family and above all the excitement of our kids. 

This year we’ll try to remember how lucky we were to have Jo in our lives for so long - and not how unlucky we were to have her taken from us.

2016 has been an awful year for our family, and it’s been a divisive one for the wider world.

A year in which fascism, xenophobia, extremism and terrorism made us divided and felt threatened, from America, to Europe, to the Middle East and beyond.

And these trends could strengthen -  they could gain momentum they could consolidate and they could threaten the fundamental freedoms, and democracy that our grandparents fought for."

But he will say that 2016 "could be a wake-up call that brings us back together".

"A wake-up call for all those of us who thought that the values that feel so much part of our society; of tolerance, of fair play - were in some way sacrosanct and didn’t need defending."

"If 2016 was a wakeup call, I hope 2017 might be the year in which we realise that we’ve got more in common than that which divides us."

His message comes after Prince Charles delivered a stark warning against the rise of populism, saying it risks repeating the "dark days" of the 1930s.