To the brutal, sudden end, Jo Cox was beating into the wind, refusing to drop causes and arguments she believed in passionately, even when they seemed doomed to defeat.

On Tuesday in Westminster, she talked for an hour about trolling, Brexit, Labour in the north, Syria and humanitarian intervention, life as an MP and the struggle to make a difference. We were supposed to meet on Wednesday, but it was brought forward because she had to go to her Yorkshire constituency a day early in an attempt to shore up the remain vote. That was what she was doing when she was killed.

She believed passionately that it was possible to stand up for the pummelled working class of northern England, and at the same time strive to protect Syrians from bombing or at least help to care for the orphans of that war.

The overwhelming majority of Labour members in Batley and Spen oppose her position on the EU referendum, and she conceded Labour had failed to connect with its supporters on immigration. A dispassionate debate on the issue was becoming impossible anyway. She felt she was pushing against the tabloid press and daily scare stories such as the supposedly imminent invasion of Turkish migrants across the Channel.