Differing viewpoint

The understandable outpouring of grief for the late Jo Cox MP has been in the spotlight for the last week, with the trial of Thomas Mair.

Now for the cat among the pigeons bit, he has rightly been vilified for the murder of Jo, but I wonder if he was turned from the mild-mannered gardener into an introspective recluse because his views were never allowed a platform except in far right journals and websites.

We are very good at shouting down anyone who does not agree with the accepted norm, if, whenever he tried to put a different point of view forward he was called racist or bigot, then he may have retreated into his shell, and, brooding on things this is where a mind can turn to violence.

The case of Anders Breivik in Norway was very similar – a man not allowed to speak his mind, withdrew into himself, festered and exploded in violence.

I myself have been called these names because I had the temerity to vote leave in the referendum, but unlike these men I have broad shoulders and will take on the people who want to close any dialogue by just shouting racist.

Perhaps, a grown-up debate on what I consider to be the failed experiment called multiculturalism is called for, one that takes in both sides without the rabid shouting down of a differing viewpoint.

Geoff Bunting

Herries Road, Sheffield, S5