Mayor says space, near venue frequented by Cox, should serve as a reminder to reject ‘poison of hatred’

Place Jo Cox has been inaugurated to the melancholic chords of a Balkan folk song and the anti-apartheid hymn Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika as Brussels honoured the murdered MP in a ceremony attended by her family and the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

The small corner of Brussels backing on to the Ancienne Belgique, a venue frequently visited by Cox during her six years living in the city, was packed with local dignitaries and politicians who had come to remember and watch as the new name plaque was unveiled.

Cox’s sister, Kim Leadbeater, addressing the crowd in the square, said she could still hear her sibling’s “immortal words” on deciding to be an MP: “It won’t affect your lives at all.”

Her sister’s death at the hands of a far-right terrorist a few days before the 2016 EU referendum was still impossible to comprehend, Leadbeater said.

The family had hoped there would be sea-change in political discourse after Cox’s murder on the streets where she grew up. “Obviously for us everything changed forever,” she said. But a development for the good in British politics had not come to pass, and the inauguration was “an opportunity to reflect on this”, she said.

The mayor of Brussels, Philippe Close, said Place Jo Cox should serve as a reminder that the “poison of hatred” had to be rejected and that barriers should be brought down rather than erected. “Whatever the end result of the Brexit negotiations, the United Kingdom will always be part of Europe,” he said.

Corbyn appealed for people to remember the values that had shaped Cox’s life, noting that she had loved the “internationalism, the globalism” of Brussels.

He recalled her words in the House of Commons shortly after being elected, in which she beseeched all sides of the political divide in the UK to acknowledge they had more in common than that which divided them. It was this message, he said, that should be remembered. “We can change the world,” Corbyn said.

Cox lived in Brussels while working for the MEP Glenys Kinnock and for Oxfam, before she was elected to the House of Commons in 2015. She died on 16 June 2016 after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, West Yorkshire, where she had been due to hold a constituency surgery.

Shortly before a performance by a choir led by Suzy Sumner, Cox’s close friend, Richard Corbett, Labour’s leader in the European parliament, spoke for many in the crowd: “Our hearts were torn apart when he heard the terrible news that day.”

The naming of Place Jo Cox is part of an initiative to increase female representation on street signs in Brussels.

Speaking after the ceremony, Cox’s parents Jean, 70, and Gordon, 71, spoke of their pride in their daughter, and the pride she would have felt in the naming of the square.

“She loved Brussels, she really did,” Jean said. “She had her 30th birthday party here, a big party full of friends and family. Such a kind city. Jo would have been particularly proud because this square is now named after a woman, and women’s rights were so important to her. Let’s hope there are many more named after women.”

She added: “These days are always hard. It is bittersweet because we know why we are here – because Jo was murdered. But we are really looking forward to bringing her children here. It is such a kind thing to do for her, and us.”

Udo Bullmann, the German leader of the group of 189 socialist MEPs in which Labour sits, said: “It is a fitting tribute by the city of Brussels to name a square in her honour, recognising the time that she spent here and the values of inclusion and tolerance that she stood for.”