Dawn Foster

Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen, was killed yesterday outside her constituency surgery in Birstall, West Yorkshire. The circumstances alone are shocking, but the details make it more unbearable: a former head of policy at Oxfam, she had fought for years on maternal mortality, and supported Alf Dubs’s amendment to the Immigration Bill that would have allowed 3000 unaccompanied child refugees into the country; she was a young and newly elected MP; she was the mother of two small children, who will grow up without her; she was killed after sitting in a library waiting for constituents to tell her their problems. Her death comes during a poisonous referendum campaign that has focused on race and nationalism, and the person accused of stabbing and shooting her has reportedly had links with far-right white supremacist groups. According to witnesses he shouted 'Britain first' during the attack. Hate is an easy emotion to provoke but a difficult one to control.

The first time I wrote an article for a newspaper, the first online comment said: 'If I ever see you in the street, I hope you get shot.' The article was about being abused and harassed in the street, specifically while cycling. I wasn't surprised that the online comments mirrored the behaviour the article addressed. But unlike the men who shouted at me as I waited on my bike in Clapham, the online commenter could be sure I wouldn't spit in his face in response.

On Newsnight last week, Gillian Duffy, the 71-year-old branded 'a sort of bigoted woman' by Gordon Brown during the 2010 election campaign, was interviewed in a segment on the European Union referendum. The EU, Duffy claimed, wasted 'trillions' each year, but she also said she was 'frightened of losing our identity, that’s what I’m afraid of, we’ll never get England back to how it was.' In the five years since Brown’s gaffe, Duffy has been hunted down repeatedly by journalists, to be asked her views on Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, the direction of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership and now the EU referendum. Duffy’s insights into politics aren’t groundbreaking in their perspicacity: she’s treated as a curio, trotted out as a bellwether of working-class feeling.