Widdecombe served as the Conservative MP for Maidstone for 23 years, holding ministerial roles in Sir John Major’s government between 1994 and 1997.<\/p>\n
Following her departure from the Commons in 2010, Widdecombe appeared on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing that year, and was a runner-up on Celebrity Big Brother eight years later.<\/p>\n
She joined the Brexit Party in 2019, where she represented South West England as its MEP from 2019 to 2020.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, about 40 mourners gathered in Haytor Vale to pay tribute to Widdecombe, including senior Reform figures.<\/p>\n
Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said he had spoken to Widdecombe on Monday and he “nearly fell over with shock and horror” when he heard of her death. <\/p>\n
“We have lost an absolute colossus, a legend in all our lifetime,” he told the crowd.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also paid tribute to Widdecombe last week, describing her death as a “significant loss” as he called on people to “rise above” political differences. <\/p>\n
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch described Widdicombe as a “very fun and feisty woman”, adding her “heart is breaking for [Widdecombe’s] family”. <\/p>\n
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, who visited Dartmoor to pay his respects to the 78 year old, described her as a “remarkable individual” and “the fiercest defender of free speech”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Widdecombe served as the Conservative MP for Maidstone for 23 years, holding ministerial roles in Sir John Major’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-689134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}