Ann Widdecomme

Ann Noreen Widdecombe (4 October 1947 – c. 8 July 2026) was a British politician and media personality. As a member of the Conservative Party, she was the member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, previously Maidstone, from 1987 to 2010. She joined the Brexit Party – later Reform UK – in 2019. She was their member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England from 2019 to 2020 and served as immigration and justice spokesperson from 2023 until her death. Born in Bath, Somerset, Widdecombe read Latin at the University of Birmingham, then philosophy, politics and economics at ... Ann Noreen Widdecombe (4 October 1947 – c. 8 July 2026) was a British politician and media personality. As a member of the Conservative Party, she was the member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, previously Maidstone, from 1987 to 2010. She joined the Brexit Party – later Reform UK – in 2019. She was their member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South West England from 2019 to 2020 and served as immigration and justice spokesperson from 2023 until her death. Born in Bath, Somerset, Widdecombe read Latin at the University of Birmingham, then philosophy, politics and economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. A convert from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, she was a member of the Conservative Christian Fellowship. She served as Minister of State for Employment from 1994 to 1995 and Minister of State for Prisons from 1995 to 1997. Under William Hague, she sat in the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Health from 1998 to 1999 and Shadow Home Secretary from 1999 to 2001. She was appointed to the Privy Council in 1997. Widdecombe stood down from the House of Commons at the 2010 general election. From 2002 she made numerous television and radio appearances, including as a presenter. She competed in the eighth series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2010 and was runner-up in the twenty-first series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2018. A prominent Eurosceptic, she supported the Vote Leave campaign during the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union (EU). She returned to politics as the Brexit Party's lead candidate in South West England at the 2019 European Parliament election, winning a seat in line with national results and serving until the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. At the 2019 general election, she contested Plymouth Sutton and Devonport for the Brexit Party, finishing third and retaining her deposit. Ideologically, Widdecombe identified as a social conservative and emphasised traditional values. During her time in the House of Commons, she opposed the legality of abortion, opposed granting LGBT people legal rights such as equalisation of the age of consent and opposed the repeal of Section 28. She supported the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder and opposed all forms of assisted dying. She supported rigorous animal protection laws and opposed fox hunting. On 9 July 2026, Widdecombe was found dead in her home in Devon; it is believed she was attacked the previous day and her provisional cause of death was recorded as blunt-force trauma. A 28-year-old British man was charged with murder on 20 July. Early life Ann Noreen Widdecombe was born on 4 October 1947 in Bath, Somerset, the second child and only daughter of Rita Noreen (née Plummer; 1911–2007) and Ministry of Defence civil servant James Murray Widdecombe (1910–1999). Both parents were from the West Country: her father was born in Saltash and her mother in Plymouth. As a child, she often visited the area to see relatives and would walk on Dartmoor with her father. Widdecombe attended the Royal Naval School in Singapore and La Sainte Union Convent School in Bath, she then spent three-years reading Latin at the University of Birmingham. She went on to study philosophy, politics and economics at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She served one term as the secretary of the Oxford Union in 1971 and one term as its treasurer in 1972. While at Oxford, Widdecombe lived next door to Mary Archer, Edwina Currie and Michèle Brown, the wife of Gyles Brandreth.[10] She worked for Unilever from 1973 to 1975 and then as an administrator at the University of London from 1975 to 1987 before entering Parliament. Political career In 1974, Widdecombe served as personal assistant to Michael Ancram during the February and October general elections. From 1976 to 1978 she was a councillor on Runnymede District Council in Surrey. Widdecombe contested Burnley in the 1979 general election and in 1983 stood against David Owen in Plymouth Devonport. In 1983, she co-founded Women and Families for Defence with Lady Olga Maitland and Virginia Bottomley, a group formed in opposition to the anti-nuclear Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. Widdecombe was first elected to the House of Commons for the Conservatives at the 1987 general election, representing Maidstone (renamed Maidstone and The Weald in 1997), which she won with a majority of 10,364 over the SDP–Liberal Alliance's Christopher Sutton-Mattocks. See more