Andrew Castle: We Need To Protect Our MPs To Stop Another Jo Cox Happening

3 February 2018, 11:30

This is Andrew Castle's passionate response to listeners who criticised him for mentioning Jo Cox when he interviewed Jacob Rees-Mogg about the scuffle he tried to stop.

Andrew interviewed the Conservative MP about the incident involving masked men at the University of Western England.

And he asked whether Mr Rees-Mogg ever felt unsafe at events such event bearing in mind what happened to Ms Cox, the Labour MP who was murdered by a far-right terrorist in 2016.

Some listeners weren't happy with Andrew mentioning Ms Cox, but he said it's important to discuss that to make sure we can keep our MPs safe.

He said: "It is a worry. And somebody has criticised me for bringing up the name Jo Cox when I was talking to Jacob. Don't criticise me for that. For goodness sake, can you not see the parallels?

"These are elected representatives. It's vital that they are protected, looked after and allowed to speak. They are our voices on the issues, whether you agree with them or not.

"Tolerance. We're so dictatorial and our university campuses seem to be so full of that. 'You've got to think this way or I'm going to attack you.' No, it's not good."