'We need more like her in politics': Ex-Conservative stalwart Ann Widdecombe 'very friendly with Ian Paisley despite being devout Catholic'

Miss Widdecombe, a long-standing Conservative before joining The Brexit Party and then Reform, has died at the age of 78 it was announced today.

It later emerged that police are treating her death as murder.

Sammy Wilson, DUP MP for East Antrim from 2005 to present, had overlapped with Miss Widdecombe in the Commons, where she had sat from 1987 to 2010.

Speaking after news of her death emerged, but before the murder investigation broke, Mr Wilson remembered her as having brought “colour” to Parliament.

"We shared many of the same views and fought on many of the same issues,” said Mr Wilson – issues like gay marriage and abortion (which they opposed) and economic conservatism (which they advocated).

"She was always larger than life. When she spoke she waved her arms about an awful lot.

"Once she was wearing this black-and-white dress with zig-zags on it, and Boris Johnson was sitting beside me and says: ‘It wouldn’t take you to be epileptic when she’s speaking!’

"She really was passionate in the House of Commons, and a great speaker, because she believed what she said and got really into it.

"I liked her because of that, and also because she shared many of the same views.

"She was one of the characters of the House of Commons.”

He went on to add: “Her and Ian Paisley, even though she was a very, very committed Catholic, would’ve shared views and would have been very friendly.

"In theology they were probably miles apart, but nevertheless there was common ground there on many social issues.”

Even after she left the Commons media people still sought her out because of her character, he said.

“I just think we need more politicians like that: people who actually believe what they stand for, and they don’t do it just for convenience,” he said.

“She was quite an able woman, but she probably lost out on positions because of her outspoken views and the fact she didn’t fit in with the woke direction in which the Conservative Party was travelling.

"But she was determined that her views were more important than position…

"She was not a political chameleon, put it that way. She stood out like a beacon on a hill.”

The UK-wide anti-abortion charity Right to Life called her a “remarkable heroine of the pro-life cause”.

Anti-Protocol campaigner Ben Habib, former deputy leader of Reform, wrote on Twitter (X): “She was a true patriot. A deeply Christian lady with unbending principles.

“Her stiff upper lip was matched with an equally big heart and sympathy for others.

“She was an ardent unionist and stood shoulder to shoulder with me over Northern Ireland.

“I loved Ann and will greatly miss her.”

She had been a Brexit Party MEP in 2019/2020, then became Reform’s immigration and justice spokeswoman.

She had been employment minister, social security minister, and prisons minister, all under the Prime Ministership of John Major.

Northern Ireland was never a direct area of her responsibilities.

But speaking in the Commons in 1999 about the awarding of the George Cross to the RUC that year, Miss Widdecombe had told MPs that the force had been “the thin green line that has literally stood between the rule of law and the descent into anarchy, and not just in Northern Ireland”, adding: “As both the Metropolitan Police and the Garda would be the first to acknowledge, the RUC is the first line of defence for mainland Britain and the Republic of Ireland.

"The RUC has paid a terrible price: 302 officers have been murdered and more than 9,000 have been maimed or injured.

"No police service anywhere is more deserving of our praise.”