Jo Cox, Labour MP for Batley and Spen, was shot and stabbed in a “horrific brutal” assault in her constituency and was left bleeding on the ground after the attack in Birstall, West Yorkshire. A man was arrested nearby.

 Tributes flooded in from politicians including David Cameron, Jeremy Corbyn and US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Mrs Cox’s husband Brendan said she would want people “to unite to fight against hatred that killed her.” The 41-year-old mother-of-two increased Labour’s majority to 6, 051. Helen Joanne Cox started working in politics after graduating from Cambridge University,  where she was enrolled in Pembroke College, an institution that produced graduates like the English poet Ted Hughes, writer Indra Sinha and Karan Thapar. She graduated in 1995, and built a career working for charities including Oxfam and Save the Children and NSPCC. A Heckmondwike Grammar School student who became the first person in her family to go to university –reading social and political studies at Cambridge.

After graduating , Jo who was Batley and Spen born and bred, worked as an adviser for the Labour MP Joan Walley and then Baroness Glenys Kinnock. By 1990s she was head of campaigns for the Pro-European pressure group Britain in Europe. She also studied further at the London School of Economics. She cared deeply about her party, and how politics can make difference not just in UK, but around the world.

In Westminster, she was chairman of Labour Women’s Network and a senior adviser to the Freedom Fund, an anti-slavery charity.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described her as “a much loved colleague, a real talent and a dedicated campaigner for social justice and peace”.

“Jo died doing her public duty at the heart of our democracy, listening to and representing the people she was elected to serve. It is profoundly important cause for us all” he said.

She was one of the MPs who nominated Mr Corbyn so he could take part in the 2015 Labour leadership election.

In December 2015, Mrs Cox was one of the five Labour MPs who abstained in the vote on air strikes against the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria. She was the Co-chair of the Friends of Syria All Party Parliamentary Group.

She said “ In my view it is only when civilians are protected that we will defeat ISIS (IS), and until that is at the centre of our plan, I will remain an outspoken advocate for that cause.”

The MP  was taken by air ambulance to Leeds General Infirmary, where armed police are stationed outside after she was left lying and bleeding on a pavement after the incident. The 52-year-old suspect, who lived close the scene where Cox was shot and stabbed was named as Thomas Mair.

In a Tweet, philanthropist Melinda Gates described Cox as “a brilliant champion for women and the world’s poorest.” She worked for a decade at Oxfam, an international NGO that works with communities in several countries to fight poverty. Cox was active in UK parliamentary groups working on issues in embattled regions of the world such as Palestine, Syria, Kashmir and Pakistan, She was also a board member in the Burma Campaign, an organisation that works to protect human rights and promote democracy in Myanmar.

Mrs Cox was married to campaigner Brendan Cox, and she had two young children.

Campaigning has been suspended in the EU Referendum out of respect for Jo Cox.