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At least a thousand people crammed into a banqueting hall at a Muslim community centre in Batley on Friday night to pay tribute to Jo Cox.

Lady Warsi was one speaker to reminisce warmly about her time with Cox, who persuaded her during the 2015 election to take part in an event about Islamophobia. “It takes a certain kind of Labour politician to convince the ex-chairman of the Conservative party to share a platform with her weeks before the general election, and to praise her for the work that she was doing. But that was Jo; working above the fray, across the political divide. She reminded us, many of us, why we entered politics. She allowed us to believe that we could make a difference and that we could change things,” said Warsi.

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi joins people at a vigil in the Indian Muslim Welfare Society’s Al-Hikmah Centre in Batley. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Stuart Andrew, Conservative MP for nearby Pudsey, Horsforth and Aireborough, said Cox formed numerous friendships across party lines. “I first met Jo almost immediately after the general election. We were both asked to appear on the Sunday Politics show. I was taken by the BBC to the makeup room. She was having her makeup done and she instantly smiled at me and I knew within those first few seconds that this was a person I was going to enjoy knowing. She was so warm and so kind. In fact, I think the producers of the programme were a bit disappointed because we got on so well,” he said.

“From that moment on, every time I saw Jo – in a meeting in parliament or passing her in a corridor or whether it be at prime minister’s questions on the opposite side of the chamber, we would look at each other and smile.”

Various men from the local Muslim community paid tribute to Cox. Iqbal Bhana, deputy chair of the Al Hickmah centre, where the event was held, warned the audience that he may struggle to “keep it together” as he delivered his tribute, in which he recalled how Cox would always greet him with a hug: “My wife doesn’t even normally do that.”