Jo Cox wins peace award for Syria campaign

The late Labour MP Jo Cox has been awarded a major piece prize for her work to tackle the crisis in Syria.

Cox, who was MP for Batley and Spen, awarded the Rising Global Peace Forum honour jointly with the White Helmets group.

She had championed White Helmets in the last few years of her life and wrote a letter to the Nobel committee nominating them for the Nobel Peace Prize. They have saved over 70,000 lives in the Syrian civil war.

The Rising Global Peace award is part of the forum, started last year by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, hosted in Coventry.

This comes alongside news that a charity single involving various famous musicians and the cross-parliamentary rock band MP4 will be recorded with profits going to the Jo Cox Foundation. The foundation, which shall be launched by the raised money, will seek to support causes which Cox herself championed throughout her life.

Musicians involved include KT Tunstall, David Gray, Suzi Quatro, the Kaiser Chief’s Ricky Wilson and Cockney Rebel’s frontman Steve Harley. They shall cover the Rolling Stones’ classic song ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’.

The trial of Thomas Mair, accused of the murder of Jo Cox, began today.