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Our deepest condolences go out to the family of Jo Cox MP, we can only imagine the pain and despair they must be going through right now. Notwithstanding their grief and sorrow they should feel nothing but pride and honour for a wife and mother who without doubt was a shining new light in politics. A young woman who was not afraid to stand up for the rights of the most oppressed and the most subjugated.

We believe that Jo was killed for providing a powerful voice and a platform for those who have no voice in Britain and throughout the world today.

This is perhaps the most important vote for our generation. The EU referendum vote will dictate whether or not the UK turns it's back on the European Union or stays in it to reform it. Operation Black Vote is seeking the largest BME voter turnout ever seen in the UK.

Of course there are general considerations that we must weigh up over the next few days including: immigration, prosperity and accountability. But there are also some specific considerations that are particular to Black and minority ethnic communities.

They include:

In a blistering attack on some of her Conservative colleagues and the Leave campaign in general, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi states that Britain will be a more divided and xenophobic country in the wake of the Leave campaign tactics. As a result she was switching sides from the Leave camp to the Remain camp.

Sam King MBE should have easily been Sir Sam King. The service he gave to this nation deserved nothing less. As an 18 year old King joined the RAF. He recalls his mother telling him that the ‘mother country needs you, but make sure you come back’.

After putting his life on the line for the UK, he would later return on as part of the historical Windrush Generation which sailed into Tilbury docks in 1948, some three years after the 2nd World War.

A most awful tragedy has befallen on the British Society: It is devastating that a Member of Parliament should be so brutally murdered going about their duty as a public servant. That devastation is compounded by the knowledge that this MP, Jo Cox was no ordinary politician. What Cox represented was the type of political representative who was driven to make our world a better place, locally, nationally, and globally, particulalry for those who were most vulnerable.

In a world of political opportunism and careerism Cox personified the complete opposite.

When Operation Black Vote sought to urge BME communities to register vote ahead of next week’s EU referendum vote we argued that our voices need to be heard,  and our votes need to be counted, not least because there are elements out there  that are truly racist and they will vote. We claimed that sadly, these elements were on both sides of the debate, but particularly on the Leave side.

http://www.obv.org.uk/news-blogs/orlando-hatred-everywhere-everyone-affected

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Contact OBV Press office: 07920 057 237 / 07584 177 529

Operation Black Vote and Saatchi & Saatchi have launched a poster campaign urging people to go to the polls to vote in the EU Referendum. The campaign is designed to demonstrate that the future of Britain is within everyone’s power to decide: they simply have to exercise their democratic right to vote.

OBV has teamed up with other voluntary organisations such as Bite the Ballot who seek to mobilise the youth vote in all elections.

The EU referendum is not just for the powerful and privileged – we hope this photograph of people from Britain’s minority communities will help to open up the debate

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has come out to applaud OBV’s latest poster campaign that urges the UK’s Black and minority ethnic communities to vote on the 23rd June.

In a statement issued from the Mayor’s office Khan said:

This is the OBV that I have worked closely with over many years. They are doing what they do best, by encouraging higher voter turnout from under-represented communities.”