Jo Cox's Memory to be Celebrated with Countrywide Street Parties

Thousands of street parties, bake-offs, and picnics are to be held across Great Britain later this year in the memory of former Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox, a year after her life was taken last June in a targeted attack by a right-wing extremist.

The Great Get Together community initiative is being launched by Jamie Oliver and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in association with the Jo Cox Foundation and Eden’s Project’s Big Lunch, and will take place on the weekend of 17 and 18 June.

Jo’s widower Brendan Cox has said that there could be “no more fitting tribute” to his wife, who “loved a party, and would have been thrilled by the idea of the Great Get Together”, adding that her murder was “a political thing designed to divide our country and split communities apart”, and that uniting in this kind of celebration was would be a powerful statement.

“Jo wanted a chance to bring our communities together to celebrate what unites us. As she said in her maiden speech in parliament - we have far more in common than that which divides us”

The event will follow a similar format to the celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, where more than 8 million people took part in community-hosted parties in streets, gardens, and public spaces, and the scale of celebrations in Jo’s memory are expected to surpass those of the Jubilee.

"Whether it's the Olympics, Jubilee or Royal Wedding people love that opportunity to come together," Mr Cox added.

"But being British we need that excuse to get together."