Caroline Cox, Baroness Cox

The Baroness Cox
FRCS FRCN

The Baroness Cox in the House of Lords, 2008
Member of the House of Lords
Assumed office
24 January 1983
Personal details
Born Caroline Anne McNeill Love
(1937-07-06) 6 July 1937
England
Political party Cross-bench (2004–present)
Conservative (until 2004)
Alma mater University of London
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Caroline Cox, Baroness Cox FRCN (born 6 July 1937) is a cross-bench member of the British House of Lords. She also is the founder and CEO of an organisation called the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART). She has campaigned for humanitarian causes, particularly relating to disability.[1]

Background

Baroness Cox was born as Caroline Anne McNeill Love, the daughter of an internationally renowned surgeon, co-author of the famous textbook known as ‘Bailey and Love’, Robert McNeill Love.[2] She was educated at Channing School in Highgate. She became a state registered nurse at London Hospital from 1958, and a staff nurse at Edgware General Hospital from 1960. She married Dr Murray Newall Cox in 1959, remaining married to him until he died in 1997. The couple had three children, two sons and one daughter. In the late 1960s she studied for a degree at the University of London where she graduated with a first class honours degree in sociology in 1967 and a master's degree from the University of London.

Academic career and subsequent activities

On graduating, Cox became a sociology lecturer at the Polytechnic of North London rising to become Principal Lecturer. From 1974 she was head of the Department of Sociology. In 1977 she moved to become Director of the Nursing Education Research Unit at Chelsea College of the University of London. She was also made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. She was also concerned with education and backed the reforms to reduce powers of Local Education Authorities in 1993, arguing for a more strongly religious element to teaching. Her background in sociology led her to write books on the subject for nurses, and she also co-wrote a book (Rape of Reason) attacking alleged communist activity at the Polytechnic of North London in 1975. She was founding Chancellor of Bournemouth University.

Cox was a Director of the Conservative Philosophy Group from 1983-85.[3] In 1987 she co-founded the Committee for a Free Britain funded by Rupert Murdoch which at one point called for "the legalization of all drugs"[4]

She is a director of the Educational Research Trust, the Andrei Sakharov Foundation and the Centre for Social Cohesion.[5] In 2006 she received an honorary law degree from the University of Dundee[6] and was installed as the Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University in the same year.

Member of the House of Lords

Her peerage was announced on 15 December 1982 on a list of "working peers",[7] on the recommendation of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and she was granted the title of Baroness Cox, of Queensbury in Greater London, on 24 January 1983.[8] Cox initially sat as a Conservative and served briefly as a Baroness-in-Waiting. She served as a Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords from 1986 to 2006.

Education Reform bill

During the debates over the Education Reform bill, Cox worked together with Michael Alison to ensure that a commitment was made that state education was 'broadly Christian' in character.[9] The bill later passed as the Education Reform Act 1988.

Foreign affairs

Lady Cox became a frequent contributor to Lords debates on Africa, and also raised other "forgotten conflicts" in letters to the press. She was already highlighting fighting in Sudan in September 1992, criticising Sudan's Islamist government and backing Dr. John Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Army,[10] and also criticised the actions of the government of Muslim Azerbaijan in the Armenian Christian breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.[11][12] According to The Independent, she has made 55 trips to Sudan in which she bought slaves in order to free them, using money given by churches.[13]

Cox chairs the British Armenian All-Party Parliamentary Group.[14] She is also a strong supporter of self-determination for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is officially a part of Azerbaijan.[15] Paying tribute to Cox's dedication to the Armenian cause, Frank Pallone, Jr., the co-chairman of the US Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, praised her devotion to Armenia and Karabakh.[16] On 15 February 2006 she was awarded the Mkhitar Gosh Medal by the President of the Republic of Armenia Robert Kocharyan. [17]

Lady Cox is also the Vice Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on North Korea.[18] The Group has stated that the Obama administration brings with it an opportunity for a formal cessation of hostilities and normalisation of relations with North Korea.[19]

Eurosceptic

Lady Cox is a Eurosceptic. She rebelled over the Maastricht Treaty, supporting an amendment to require a nationwide referendum on ratification on 14 July 1993.[20] In May 2004 she joined three other Conservative peers in signing a letter published by the UK Independence Party urging voters to support it in the elections to the European Parliament. The Leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard, immediately withdrew the party whip, formally expelling them from the parliamentary party. Cox now sits in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.[21][22]

Geert Wilders controversy

In February 2009, Cox courted controversy when she and UKIP peer Lord Pearson invited Dutch Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders to show the anti-radical-Islam film Fitna before the House of Lords. However, Wilders was prevented from entering the UK on the instructions of Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.[23] In response, Cox and Pearson accused the Government of appeasing militant Islam.[22][24]

Legislative Activities

Lady Cox introduced the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill to the House of Lords, initially on 10 May 2012.[25] with the observation that "Equality under the law is a core value of British justice. My bill seeks to preserve that standard. Many women say: 'We came to this country to escape these practices only to find the situation is worse here.'"[26] It had its second reading and debate on 19 October 2012, but went no further.[27]

Lady Cox aims to prevent discrimination against Muslim women and 'jurisdiction creep' in Islamic tribunals, which would be forced to acknowledge the primacy of English law under a bill introduced to the House of Lords in May 2012. The bill will introduce an offence carrying a five-year jail sentence for anyone falsely claiming or implying that sharia courts or councils have legal jurisdiction over family or criminal law. The bill, which will apply to all arbitration tribunals if passed, aims to tackle discrimination, which its supporters say is inherent in the courts, by banning the sharia practice of giving woman's testimony only half the weight of men's. In a similar way to Jewish Beth Din courts, sharia tribunals can make verdicts in cases involving financial and property issues which, under the Arbitration Act 1996, are enforceable by county courts or the high court.[26]

A journalist observed that sharia law in Britain is exactly the sort of topic mainstream politicians will not touch. Baroness Cox stated that "We cannot sit here complacently in our red and green benches while women are suffering a system which is utterly incompatible with the legal principles upon which this country is founded. If we don't do something, we are condoning it."[22][28]

Baroness Cox of Queensbury is fighting to stop sharia 'seeping' into enforcing divorce settlements.[29]

Cox re-introduced her legislation on 11 June 2014.[30][31]

Other Activities

In June 2002 Cox hosted a launch event for Great Britain has Fallen!, a book written by Nigerian missionary Wale Babatunde and also wrote endorsements saying the book "showed the way forward" for reversing Britain's moral decline.[32]

One Jerusalem

She is one of 18 co-founders of the One Jerusalem organisation,[33] which aims at "maintaining a united Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel".[34] On 24 January 2005, she became Co-President of the Jerusalem Summit.[35][36] One of the stated aims of the Jerusalem Summit is "The establishment of a Palestinian State must removed from the international agenda".[37] She is the founder of The International Islamic Christian Organisation for Reconciliation and Reconstruction.[38]

Christian Solidarity Worldwide

She was president of Christian Solidarity Worldwide until 2006, thereafter remaining as its patron.[39] Between 1997 and 2000, Christian Solidarity Worldwide directly intervened to buy the freedom of alleged slaves, and in a letter to The Independent on Sunday Cox claimed to have redeemed 2,281 slaves on eight visits to Sudan.[40] Both the veracity of this claim[41] and the rational of slave redemption[42] have been questioned by others in humanitarian community. In 1995 she won the William Wilberforce Award.[43] She is also a patron of the Christian Institute.

Global Panel Foundation and Prague Society

She is a Member of the Board of Advisors of the Global Panel Foundation, a respected NGO that works behind the scenes in crisis areas around the world.[44] Baroness Cox is also a member of Prague Society for International Cooperation, another respected NGO whose main goals are networking and the development of a new generation of responsible, well-informed leaders and thinkers.[45]

Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust

The Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), founded by Baroness Cox in 2003,[46] works to provide lasting change through aid and advocacy for those suffering oppression and persecution, who are largely neglected by the international media. HART believe that in order to adequately meet the needs and requirements of the persecuted, oppressed and overlooked; we must ask the local people for their priorities, giving them the dignity of choice and the responsibility of their own programmes. Lady Cox travels to HART funded aid and advocacy programmes in Nagorno Karabagh, East and West Burma, East Timor, India, Nigeria, southern Sudan and northern Uganda. An Australian branch of HART was established in 2009.[47]

Disability activism

Cox supports disability causes as a member of the World Committee on Disability.[1] In 2004 she was a judge for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award, distributed annually at the United Nations in New York to a nation that has met the goals of the UN World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons.[48]

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 "Members of the World Committee on Disability". National Organization on Disability. Retrieved 2009-02-24.
  2. ↑ Baroness Cox, Bournemouth University
  3. ↑ Hughes, Mike 'Western Goals (UK)' Lobster Magazine 21, (May 1991)
  4. ↑ Farrell, Michael 'News and Notes' British Journal of Addiction (1991) 86, p469
  5. ↑ Information on the Centre for Social Cohesion at Companies House
  6. ↑ "Installation of new Chancellor, The Lord Patel". University of Dundee. Retrieved 2006-06-02.
  7. ↑ The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 49198. p. 16407. 14 December 1982. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  8. ↑ The London Gazette: no. 49248. p. 1235. 27 January 1983. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  9. ↑ John Barnes, "Michael Alison: Hard-working Conservative minister" The Independent obituary, 31 May 2004, p. 31
  10. ↑ Letter to The Times, 8 September 1992
  11. ↑ Letter to The Independent, 26 January 1994
  12. ↑ Wendy Murray Zoba, "Baroness Caroline Cox: One Tough Lady", Today's Christian, January/February 1998
  13. ↑ Taylor, Jerome (19 June 2011). "Baroness Cox: 'If we ignore wrongs, we condone them'". The Independent. Retrieved 7 March 2016.
  14. ↑ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmallparty/register/armenia.htm Parliament website, group membership
  15. ↑ Armenian Assembly of America. Armenian Assembly Co-Hosts Special Capitol Hill Event Celebrating Karabakh’s Independence
  16. ↑ "Karabakh president Ghoukassian starts US tour with successful tribute gala in New York"
  17. ↑ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Republic of Armenia. Baroness Caroline Cox Receives Mkhitar Gosh Medal
  18. ↑ Parliament website, group membership
  19. ↑ Ekklesia website
  20. ↑ House of Lords Hansard
  21. ↑ Gaby Hinsliff, "Tories throw out rebel peers for backing UKIP", The Observer, 30 May 2004, p. 2
  22. 1 2 3 independent.co.uk: "Baroness Cox: 'If we ignore wrongs, we condone them'", 20 Jun 2011
  23. ↑ The Guardian, "Far-right Dutch MP refused entry to UK", 12 February 2009
  24. ↑ The Daily Telegraph, "Dutch MP Geert Wilders deported after flying to Britain to show anti-Islamic film", 12 February 2009
  25. ↑ parliament.uk: "Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] 2012-13"
  26. 1 2 theguardian.co.uk: "Bill limiting sharia law is motivated by 'concern for Muslim women'", 8 Jun 2011
  27. ↑ "HL Bill 7 55/2: Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL]"
  28. ↑ SPECTATOR.CO.UK: "The government kicks the Sharia debate into the long grass", 22 Oct 2012
  29. ↑ telegraph.co.uk: "The feisty baroness defending 'voiceless’ Muslim women", 22 Apr 2014
  30. ↑ parliament.uk: "Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL] 2014-15"
  31. ↑ "HL Bill 21 55/4: Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill [HL]"
  32. ↑ Kamal Ahmed, "Top Tory backs blast at gays and lesbians", The Observer, 15 September 2002, p. 10
  33. ↑ Our History - One Jerusalem
  34. ↑ Mission Statement from the One Jerusalem website
  35. ↑ Lady Cox Joins Summit’s Presidium - The Jerusalem Summit.
  36. ↑ A Synopsis - The Jerusalem Summit
  37. ↑ A New Paradigm for the Israeli-Palestine Conflict
  38. ↑ http://www.itnews.it/news/2009/0210132401401/uk-parliament-to-show-controversial-film-fitna.html
  39. ↑ Christiain Solidarity Website 2006
  40. ↑ "This is no scam. The slaves are real", Independent on Sunday, 3 March 2002, p. 27
  41. ↑ Media Monitors Network: The BBC, Sudan and Baroness Cox: Irresponsible Journalism
  42. ↑ HRW: Slavery and Slave Redemption in the Sudan
  43. ↑ Christine Barker, "The unsung hero's song", Birmingham Post, 27 June 1998, p. 37
  44. ↑
  45. ↑ Members of Prague Society
  46. ↑ HART website
  47. ↑ "ABC Brisbane".
  48. ↑ National Organization on Disability website, World Committee on Disability

External links

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