Andrew Vine: Hatred has to stop and healing has to start if lessons from Jo Cox murder are to be ever learned

One such was heard yesterday, and its sentiments are those of millions. Kim Leadbeater, sister of murdered Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox, spoke for a majority as despairing as it is silent when she said that we are living through “the most divisive period of our times”.

She went on to say that the country is sick and tired of division. Amen to that. There was wisdom as well as truth in what Ms Leadbeater had to say.

If it seems hard to believe that it is nearly three years since Mrs Cox was killed in the street in her constituency, it is harder to credit that politics has learned nothing from what can happen when language turns from passionate to inflammatory.

The things being said now – and the way they are expressed – are, if anything, more extreme than in the run-up to 
the EU referendum when Mrs Cox was killed.

It is almost as if the shockwave that ran through the entire country on that terrible day in June 2016 has been forgotten. Mercilessly and violently, the consequences of where unguarded rhetoric can lead were horrifically illustrated, yet the hatred to which politics can sink has not abated.

That this is the case should be a matter of profound shame for politicians of both the major parties, which have allowed extremism to flourish within their ranks.

For the Tories, that has meant a form of xenophobia in which European neighbours and allies are regarded and referred to as enemies. For Labour, it has been a tolerance of anti-Semitism.

And on the fringes, matters are even worse. If, as seems likely, Britain takes part in the EU elections three weeks from now, one of the Ukip candidates will be a man who made references to rape in connection with the Labour MP Jess Phillips.

Such a person belongs nowhere near public life, yet the fact that a legally-constituted political party embraces him, as well as the right-wing extremist Tommy Robinson, is illustrative of how coarsened and potentially dangerous the tone of debate has become in Britain.

In launching the “Let’s Get Back Together” series of events in Mrs Cox’s memory from June 21 to 23, Ms Leadbeater said that she had hoped to see a more compassionate way of doing politics after her sister’s murder.

So had any of us who have grown increasingly concerned by much of what is said. It can feel like the mainstream politics which prizes consensus and compromise has been drowned out by roars of intolerance and absolutism.

So Change UK, the new centre-ground grouping founded by Labour and Conservative MPs alarmed at the direction of their parties, and the Liberal Democrats make little impression on voters if opinion polls for the EU elections are to be believed.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives are dragged to the right under pressure from Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party and the Labour leadership is unapologetically of the left.

Maybe on a couple of days in June, gatherings in Mrs Cox’s memory can send a message to the political class that Britain is sick of division and acrimony, and that there must be a return to civilised, sensible debate.

It’s not only about Brexit, though that has been the trigger for the way politics is being conducted. Whenever a general election comes, it is likely that the campaign will be of a viciousness that leaves whoever wins with a monumental task in attempting to unite the country.

And for bitterness, the looming, inevitable contest for the Conservative leadership is likely to mark a new low even for a party historically noted for its ruthlessness in pursuit of power.

If politics wants to learn anything from events marking the anniversary of Mrs Cox’s death – and it should – one of the key lessons is how separated from the lives of people it purports to represent it has become.

Respect, tolerance, consideration for others and extending the hand of friendship will be at their heart, and none of those things should come as any surprise.

They have long been at the core of our country: the values and attitudes that underpin tens of millions of daily interactions, in homes, amid neighbours and in workplaces.

And yet they have become alien to much of our politics, which too often seeks to batter opponents into submission, to give no ground, or even to resort to intimidation and insult to win an argument.

This has to stop. As voters, we have to demand of all political parties that it comes to an end because this is not a direction that can ever unite Britain or lead anywhere but into ever-deepening hatred and mistrust of others.