A TORY councillor has been suspended after leaving a heartless, mocking and expletive-filled comment on the news that a fund set up in memory of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox had raised £1 million.
Dominic Peacock, a councillor for East Riding, posted a link to the story on Facebook with the comment: “I’ve just donated the steam off my piss.” He deleted it moments later, and has since issued an “unreserved apology”saying he had been “tired and emotional”.
Stephen Parnaby, the leader of the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said he wanted Peacock out of the party: “Following inappropriate and offensive comments made on social media relating to the sad and tragic death of Jo Cox MP, I have suspended Dominic Peacock from the East Riding of Yorkshire Council Conservative Group with immediate effect.
“I shall be reporting this to a meeting of the full group and my recommendation will be that he be expelled. All people in public life, irrespective of politics should be united in condemning the fatal and dreadful attack on Jo Cox.
“This is not the time for inappropriate remarks, however intended, and I will not tolerate them in my group, and residents should expect their elected representatives to act in an appropriate and compassionate way.”
Meanwhile, in his first interview since Cox was killed last Thursday, her husband Brendan said the politician had been killed because of her politics. “She was a politician and she had very strong political views and I believe was she killed because of those views,” he said. “I think she died because of them and she would want to stand up for those in death as much as she did in life.
“I don’t want people ascribing views to her that she didn’t have but I certainly want to continue to fight for the legacy and for the politics and the views she espoused.”
Brendan said his wife was concerned about “the tone”of the referendum, and that politics generally was becoming less rational and more tribal.
Today would have been Jo’s 42nd birthday, and Brendan used the occasion to thank the public for their support since his wife’s death.
“The two things that I’ve been very focused on is how do we support and protect the children and how do we make sure that something good comes out of this?
“And what the public support and outpouring of love around this does, is it also helps the children see that what they’re feeling and other people are feeling, that the grief that they feel isn’t abnormal, that they feel it more acutely and more painfully and more personally but that actually their mother was someone who was loved by lots of people and that therefore, it’s ok to be upset and it’s okay for them to cry and to be sad.”
Cox also told the BBC he would remember his wife as somebody who had “energy, a joy, about living life. Somebody who would have no regrets about how she lived her life.”
“She cherished every moment... I remember so much about her but most of all I will remember that she met the world with love and both love for her children, love in her family and also love for people she didn’t know.
“She just approached things with a spirit, she wasn’t perfect at all you know, but she just wanted to make the world a better place, to contribute, and we love her very much.”
MORE: Jo Cox -The Vigils
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