In these fractured times it would be all too easy to conclude that there’s no consensus on anything except the lack of any consensus. A recent Daily Mirror poll suggested 82% of us believe Britain has never been more divided, with 73% saying this has increased since the EU Referendum.
When people are asked, not surprisingly Brexit tops the poll of divisive issues, followed by attitudes to immigration, political tribalism, and growing economic inequalities. Collectively we appear to be ever more anxious about our identity, and the onslaught of the multiple challenges we face. Communities and entire regions feel ‘left behind’. Our Union is the most vulnerable it has ever been.
Globally, we exist in deeply troubled times. Violent ideologies maim and kill. The horrific Sri Lanka attacks were yet another moment in the downward spiral of transnational terrorism. We witness daily a reshifting of the world order. Data, tech and the media are perverted from their true purpose. It takes 16-year-old Greta Thunberg to cut through the haze and remind us with clarity the threat our very planet is facing.
The senseless killing of Lyra McKee momentarily united political rivals, just as the murder of Jo Cox did in 2016. Then we hoped Jo’s murder would lead to a permanent shift to less confrontational politics but we were soon disappointed. Let us hope the people of Northern Ireland are not let down in the same way.
The language of betrayal and treason infects mainstream as well as social media, and there is a normalising of intimidation and abuse in public life that has escalated dangerously in the past months.
It is always easier to go along with the consensus than to challenge it, but challenge it we must. Fears about our future do of course exist, but so too does hope. The same Mirror poll found that 82% of us wish the UK was more united, and this is a belief that guides us at The Jo Cox Foundation.
At the Jo Cox Foundation, we have found that it is most often in our local neighbourhoods that we can find reserves of comfort, cooperation and compassion. Take Jo’s own constituency of Batley and Spen, where her sister Kim Leadbeater has led a team of incredible local volunteers who came together – united by the shock and grief of Jo’s brutal murder – determined to make a difference in her memory, by working to strengthen the communities in West Yorkshire that Jo represented.
Thousands more community organisers across the country have done the same: Laura, a working mother of two from Widnes who was inspired by Jo to start a volunteer group supporting lonely people in her neighbourhood; Tony from Tower Hamlets who brings young people together through the Great Get Together to help tackle knife crime; Sarah from Cheltenham who runs a community cafe which offers a safe space to refugee looking to build friendships.
These are extraordinary people, although they would never describe themselves as such. Yet they are nothing short of extraordinary, because their energy and imagination have the power to change and to galvanise. They are extraordinary because they live the values that Jo herself lived by, and I believe they speak for the majority of us when they echo Jo’s own phrase that we really do have more in common than that which divides us.
This is why I am convinced our work is needed more than ever before. Now in its third year, The Great Get Together will once again reach thousands of communities across the UK on 21-23 June, over what would have been Jo’s 45th birthday weekend. People will come together and celebrate all that unites, rather than divides us. It will encourage the nation to come together, in spite of Brexit. It will catalyse conversations and connections, and encourage the country to listen to one another again.
The Great Get Together is a vehicle of hope; and where there is hope, there can always be change.
You can find out more about events in your area or sign up to hold one of your own here.
Jo used to say there was no such thing as the ‘too difficult’ pile. Now more than ever we have to continue in that spirit and build on what we do have in common, not dwell constantly on where we disagree.
Catherine Anderson is chief executive of the Jo Cox Foundation