This article was going to be a lot different.
It was going to be about where we are as a party, the importance of the European Union referendum, and celebrating our election victory in Wales. Before I move back to my native California next week, I was going to reflect on my time here as party staff and how hard my amazing colleagues work.
I’ve volunteered and worked for the Labour party for almost a decade; and I have loved every single difficult, joyful, despairing, uplifting, moment of it. But I have spent my last two weeks in the UK mourning the loss of so many lives through needless violence.
A vigil is something I have never experienced before. Within a week, I’ll have been to two. The first, for the victims of the Orlando shooting, senselessly and brutally killed for doing nothing other than being themselves.
The second, tonight for Jo Cox MP. A colleague who woke up Thursday morning, went to work as she normally does, and was murdered for doing nothing other than her job.
Politicians are people. Human beings – just like everyone else. Are we really living in a society where people need to be reminded of that?
This attitude that our elected representatives are somehow fair game because they lead public lives and ‘they’re all the same’ is complete and utter rubbish. Every politician I have worked with sleeps less, eats less, and spends time with their loved ones less. Each moment of an MP’s day is carefully considered to make sure that they can maximise their time helping constituents.
All of the decisions made in collaboration with colleagues and staff are so an MP can make the most of their time outside of Westminster and inside the local communities they represent. That is what Jo Cox was doing on Thursday – helping local people in the area she so proudly stood up and fought for in parliament.
And just like that, her light was extinguished by hatred and violence.
I am beside myself.
I want to take a moment to express my warmest thanks to all of the incredible people I have met and worked with over the last eight years. Each and every one of you will remind me to work hard for the values that drive our party – the same values that drove Jo: equality, fairness, and the eternal belief that love wins, always.
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Pearleen Sangha is former chair of Welsh Young Labour
Please donate to Jo Cox’s Fund, set up in her memory
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