Rock legends U2 pay Ultraviolet tribute to murdered Yorkshire MP Jo Cox

ROCK superstar Bono and his U2 bandmates paid touching tribute to murdered West Yorkshire MP Jo Cox as they played one of the year's most eagerly-awaited concerts.
By The Newsroom
Published 10th Jul 2017, 11:37 BST
Updated 18th Jul 2017, 08:47 BST
Musicians, Adam Clayton, from left, Bono, Larry Mullan Jnr and The Edge, of the band U2, performed on stage at Twickenham Stadium in London at the weekend. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)Musicians, Adam Clayton, from left, Bono, Larry Mullan Jnr and The Edge, of the band U2, performed on stage at Twickenham Stadium in London at the weekend. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)
Musicians, Adam Clayton, from left, Bono, Larry Mullan Jnr and The Edge, of the band U2, performed on stage at Twickenham Stadium in London at the weekend. (Photo by Joel Ryan/Invision/AP)

The group dedicated their song Ultraviolet (Light My Way) to Mrs Cox during the closing stages of their massive show on Saturday night at London’s Twickenham Stadium.

Before the song, Bono said the Batley & Spen MP and mother-of-two lived her life “championing the lives of others”, adding: “Jo Cox, you light the way.”

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Taken from U2’s 1991 album Achtung Baby, Ultraviolet (Light My Way) includes the lines: “Oh, child, wipe the tears from your eyes/You know I need you to be strong/And the day it is dark, as the night is long.”

The gig was not the first time that Bono has paid tribute to Mrs Cox. Speaking to fans last month during a show in the American city of Louisville, he said: “When Jo Cox was murdered for campaigning for what she believed in, her two children lost a mother and her nation lost one of its brightest stars.

“She believed in love not hate, she believed in justice and equality, she believed in listening to each other, respecting each other, being kind to each other. She believed what unites us is far stronger than what divides us.”

Bono’s words on that occasion echoed Mrs Cox’s now-famous maiden speech in the House of Commons, when she said: “Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration, be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir.

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"While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”

Mrs Cox, 41, was shot and stabbed by far-right extremist Thomas Mair as she made her way to a lunchtime constituency surgery in the centre of the village of Birstall on June 16 last year.

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