Just before lunch last Wednesday, I went along to an event organised by the Jo Cox Loneliness Commission. The Commission is led by a host of charities engaged in the care of the most lonely and vulnerable in society and they are all working towards tackling loneliness in the name of our colleague who was shot outside her a surgery nine months ago. However, it was truly perverse that just two hours after supporting this important attempt to build a positive legacy from Jo Cox’s death, Parliament and our democracy came under attack again.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, I was sometimes in close proximity to insurgent attacks and so one comes to re-define safety. On one side of a wall, you’re in danger. On the other side of a wall, you’re safe. And yet, even though the attack last week was with knives not guns, it was over seconds after it started and I was not directly involved, I was affected by it much more than some of the carnage I saw whilst serving in the Army.
Partly that’s because the indiscriminate attack on pedestrians on Westminster Bridge was just so utterly unfair. Partly it was because I have walked along that very pavement hundreds of times and occasionally with my family. Partly because it seemed so wrong that an unarmed policeman should be cut down for doing his job and standing his ground. And partly it was because we were locked in the House of Commons and now as a ‘civvy’ I had to leave it to others to deal with the incident and ensure our safety.
Yet mostly, I’ve come to realise since it was because I was angry about the target of his attack. Those of us who have the honour of serving as MPs know that Parliament is not ours, it is the property of the nation. The voices in the House of Commons might be the voices of MPs but they are representing people across the United Kingdom. Just as Jo Cox’s murder was really an attack on the way all MPs did their work, Wednesday’s attack was an attempt to silence Parliament.
Well Thomas Mair failed to stop MPs doing their work any differently and Khalid Masood has failed to silence our Parliament. The deaths of Jo Cox, PC Keith Palmer and those who were just walking across Westminster Bridge will be mourned and we have the greatest sympathy for their families. However the message to the attackers of the future is that whatever you do, you’ll just make us stronger. Tens of thousands of elderly people will have a better life because of the work of the Jo Cox Loneliness Commission and after last Wednesday our Parliament will be emboldened to speak more freely, more passionately and more determinedly on the issues that matter to our communities and our great country. Terror will never win.