British police have arrested a man on suspicion of murdering former UK government minister Ann Widdecombe.<\/p>\n
Ms Widdecombe, a 78-year-old former Reform UK politician, was found dead at her home on Thursday (local time).<\/p>\n
She had sustained serious injuries, police said.<\/p>\n
Police on Friday said a 26-year-old white British man had been arrested in Newton Abbot, a town about 15km from Ms Widdecombe’s home in rural southwest England.<\/p>\n
Devon and Cornwall police assistant chief constable Matt Longman said there was no information to suggest the incident was related to terrorism or had a political motive.<\/p>\n
Ms Widdecombe was well known for her socially conservative views, first as a junior minister in Conservative prime minister John Major’s 1992-1997 government and latterly as an immigration and justice spokesperson for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.<\/p>\n
Police said officers were called to Ms Widdecombe’s home shortly after midday on Thursday, where she was found dead. Forensic examinations at the property were ongoing, they said.<\/p>\n
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer paid tribute to “Ann’s dedication during her many years of public service”.<\/p>\n
Throughout her political career, Ms Widdecombe was known for her bluntness and socially conservative views, including opposition to abortion and to equalising the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual relationships.<\/p>\n
In one of her most memorable comments, she said her former boss and future Conservative leader, Michael Howard, had “something of the night about him”.<\/p>\n
After leaving parliament, she appeared on the TV talent show “Strictly Come Dancing” in 2010. Despite her awkward dancing style and criticism from the judges, she was popular with viewers. Later she said the show’s decision to feature same-sex couples was out of keeping with its family audience.<\/p>\n
She later joined Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and served as a member of the European Parliament between 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n
Following the announcement of her death, and before details of the murder inquiry were announced, former colleagues from both the Conservative and Reform UK parties paid tribute to her.<\/p>\n
Mr Farage said she “played a decisive role in getting Brexit over the line”.<\/p>\n
Former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson called her “a heroic Brexiteer and a great speaker who could move Tory audiences to such ecstasy that she was a very hard act to follow.”<\/p>\n
-With Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British police have arrested a man on suspicion of murdering former UK government minister Ann Widdecombe. Ms Widdecombe,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[35832,61,555,33,5,6],"class_list":["post-80902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-ann-widdecombe","tag-crime","tag-murder","tag-police","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116898300077654883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}