lit a candle 2 Sept 2026Whatever you thought of the politics, Ann served, and served with conviction.
Their story
Ann Noreen Widdecombe, born on 4 October 1947 and believed to have died on or around 8 July 2026, was a British politician who became, in later life, a familiar face on television and radio. She sat as a Conservative in the House of Commons for Maidstone, and afterwards for…
Ann Noreen Widdecombe, born on 4 October 1947 and believed to have died on or around 8 July 2026, was a British politician who became, in later life, a familiar face on television and radio. She sat as a Conservative in the House of Commons for Maidstone, and afterwards for Maidstone and The Weald, from 1987 until 2010. In 2019 she joined the Brexit Party, which later became Reform UK, representing South West England in the European Parliament from 2019 to 2020 and acting as the party's spokesperson on immigration and justice from 2023 until her death.
She was born in Bath, in Somerset. Her studies took her first to the University of Birmingham, where she read Latin, and then to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, for philosophy, politics and economics. Raised an Anglican, she converted to Roman Catholicism, and she belonged to the Conservative Christian Fellowship. In government she held office as Minister of State for Employment between 1994 and 1995, then as Minister of State for Prisons from 1995 to 1997. When William Hague led the party in opposition, she took a place in the Shadow Cabinet, first as Shadow Secretary of State for Health from 1998 to 1999 and then as Shadow Home Secretary from 1999 to 2001. She was made a member of the Privy Council in 1997.
Having chosen not to stand again at the 2010 general election, she left Parliament and turned to broadcasting, appearing regularly on television and radio from 2002 onwards, sometimes as a presenter. She took part in the eighth series of Strictly Come Dancing in 2010 and finished as runner-up in the twenty-first series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2018. A well known Eurosceptic, she backed Vote Leave in the 2016 referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union. Politics called her back three years later, when she led the Brexit Party's list in South West England at the 2019 European Parliament election and won a seat, in keeping with the party's national showing, holding it until the United Kingdom departed the EU on 31 January 2020. At the general election later that year she stood for the Brexit Party in Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, coming third and keeping her deposit.
She described herself as a social conservative and placed great weight on traditional values. In the Commons she argued against the legality of abortion, resisted the extension of legal rights to LGBT people, including the equalisation of the age of consent, and opposed the repeal of Section 28. She wanted the death penalty restored for murder, and she rejected assisted dying in every form. She was, at the same time, a firm advocate of strong laws to protect animals and a determined opponent of fox hunting.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), retold in our own words. Wikipedia ↗
Photos
4Own image taken.
by People Forever
Ann Widdecombe at Edwina Currie's Book Club,Nightingale House April 2010
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Just before the BBC Radio 4 Any Questions? programme started at the Nexus Methodist Church, Bath, on 15 January 2016. The panel included the joint chair of Labo
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Ann Widdecombe at Nightingale House, London, 2009
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Beautifully said.
Sending love from the States.