Letter from the editor-at-large: Jo Cox gave her life for democracy

For as long as I’ve been writing this Saturday column, I’ve made – laboured, some of you might say – the point that democracy really matters, and The Independent was set up to boost it. The big story of this week, which is the nihilist murder of Jo Cox MP, and the big story of next week, which is the result of the EU referendum, are united by a theme: the delicate and, some would argue, endangered state of democracy today.

Over the coming pages, we pay tribute to the remarkable life of a brilliant young campaigner and MP. We look at the reaction, which makes you proud to be British, and (as sensitively as possible) the likely consequences, such as they may be, for next week’s result. It is not going too far, I hope you’ll agree, to say that Jo Cox gave her life for democracy, just as so many of the generation of men and women who went to war against the Nazis gave their lives so that you and I might vote.

Of all the arguments for and against Brexit, the ones that have most excited me intellectually have been the ones about democracy. If the Remain camp won the argument on the economy, and the Leave camp won the argument on immigration, who won the argument on democracy and its near neighbour, sovereignty? The Remain camp argue that these days sovereignty is pooled, and by giving away some control over our own affairs, we are better placed to affect our environment. “Bollocks!” say the Leave camp, usually in that tone of voice: sixty per cent of our legislation comes from unelected bureaucrats in Brussels of whom we know very little.

Whatever your view on this particular, and vital, aspect of the referendum debate, I hope you’ll agree with the following. Democracy is very precious – and imperilled. We owe it to those who gave their lives in its service, to deploy the rights we have to chuck our electors out. Right now, British democracy has multiple threats, from the corruption of the Lords to the anachronistic voting system (with its fraudulent party divisions) and influence of big money. And also, clearly, deranged fanatics such as Cox’s killer.

Putting all this together, the very least you can do this week is head down to your local polling booth and vote. Whichever way you swing, to stay at home would be to grant a victory to all those who want to suppress democracy and the hard won freedoms that come with it. In case you’re interested, the Remain camp are now convinced their only hope of stopping Britain’s exit from the EU is a very high turnout.