The husband of Jo Cox plans to continue with a project that aims to build an international alliance to combat “the dangerous breeding ground” of economic insecurity on which the populist right has fed across European politics.

Brendan Cox has let it be known that he is determined to continue with the work in memory of his wife, who was killed on Thursday, but believes this will only succeed if lessons can be learned from why the right has so far taken the initiative on the migration issue.

In a paper he wrote a few weeks before his wife was killed which he has circulated – and asked the Guardian to quote from – Cox argues that one of the problems is that those hostile to refugees are better organised, more focused on galvanising public opinion, and better at tapping into human emotions, including over wider economic insecurities.



Mainstream politicians, he writes, “in most cases are clueless on how to deal with the public debate. Petrified by the rise of the populists they try to neuter them by taking their ground and aping their rhetoric. Far from closing down the debates, these steps legitimise their views, reinforce their frames and pull the debate further to the extremes (Sarkozy and the continuing rise of Front National is a case in point).”



Cox, who has spent months touring Europe speaking to campaigners, refugees and politicians to try to understand why populists have dominated the debate on migration, warns that governments, particularly in the UK, are at risk of focusing on the wrong issues: “They obsess over numbers (to most people 10,000 sounds as scary as 100,000), when they should focus on reinforcing frames of fairness and order.

“The UK government policy is a masterclass in how to get the crisis wrong; set an unrealistic target, miss it, report on it quarterly and in doing so show a complete lack of control heightening concern and fanning the flames of resentment.”

He said the forces hostile to refugees have political parties focused exclusively on the issue, whereas “the supportive groups have a few badly funded NGOs and a social media hashtag. In addition, progressive organisations with strong organising ability (whether political parties, trade unions or pressure groups) generally haven’t prioritised the crisis in the way the populist right have.

“All of this has meant that the populist right have shifted the politics and the public debate of the issue far more than their actual numbers dictate.

“In Germany, for example, huge amounts of energy from the supportive constituency is channelled into practical support, from mentoring to language training. This is hugely valuable but the focus on this above all else has left the public narrative almost uncontested (especially online) for the populist right to exploit.”

Cox also admits that what people think is often not related to facts but to emotion. “In a country like Poland, immigration can dominate a national election debate, despite the country being 97% white Catholic (and immigration levels being at a level where the immigration officers probably remember all the applicants’ names),” he adds.

But he claims that the core of support for refugees is highly motivated and probably has demography on its side. “In the US, UK and France, young people (18-34) are between three and four times more supportive than older people. In addition, people who know refugees and immigrants are much more likely to be supportive of them and of migration as a whole.

“As our societies become more diverse and immigration reaches more communities, more communities are likely to become less prejudiced and more supportive. Like the battle for LGBT rights, there could be a tipping point when debates stop being abstract and start to be based on personal experience.”

In conclusion, Cox writes: “There is no reason we can’t quickly shift the debate back to the mainstream and in doing so not only help refugees and migrants, but also help marginalise the resurgent populist right. To do so we need to readjust our efforts to reflect that power on this issue is with the people.”