![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/kate-hoey-6780867.jpg\" "\\"Kate")
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Kate Hoey has been one of Britain’s most ardent eurosceptics for decades – and she is still fighting (Image: Adam Gerrard)<\/p>\n
Kate Hoey<\/a> would be a star defection for Reform UK but this veteran of the Brexit<\/a> wars wants cast-iron commitments from Nigel Farage\u2019s<\/a> party for a part of the kingdom dear to her heart. The former high jump champion divides her time between the House of Lords, Belfast and Rathlin, an island off the coast of Northern Ireland famed for its puffins and seals. She wants Mr Farage to champion Northern Ireland\u2019s place in the UK and loathes the deal designed to avoid border checks with the Irish Republic.<\/p>\n \u201cNigel has to step up to the plate on Northern Ireland,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I think he will.\u201d<\/p>\n She was a torchbearer of Labour\u2019s eurosceptic<\/a> tradition from when she won the central London seat of Vauxhall in the 1989 by-election to her exit from the Commons in 2019. She had voted against the UK joining the the European Economic Community in the 1975 referendum, and she defied the whip to oppose the Maastricht treaty in 1993.<\/p>\n Labour leader John Smith rang her at home to tell her she should resign.<\/p>\n She remembers: \u201cI’m amazed at myself when I think about it. I said, \u2018Oh well, if you want me to resign, why don’t you sack me?\u2019 And he said, \u2018Well, you’re sacked’.\u201d<\/p>\n When Tony Blair appointed her to the Home Office she visited Brussels with Home Secretary Jack Straw, whom she knew well from their days as student activists. Seeing the EU machine from the inside did nothing to win her over to the European project.<\/p>\n \u201cI hated the whole wheeling and dealing stuff,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Representing one of the most pro-Remain constituencies in the country did not dent her passion for pulling out of bloc or supporting causes that would scandalise the Labour left. This daughter of County Antrim farmers became chairman of the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance in 2005 and she served for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong> Starmer putting ‘sovereignty on a silver platter’ in Brexit reset <\/a><\/p>\n The former PE teacher worked on educational programmes for top football clubs, including her beloved Arsenal, before entering politics. Boris Johnson<\/a> would bound into her office and quiz her for advice when he had to write an article on sport. When he became Mayor of London he enlisted her help in championing grassroots sports, and in 2020 he gave her a seat in the House of Lords.<\/p>\n From the red benches, she has followed Sir Keir Starmer<\/a>\u2019s EU activities with alarm. When he served as Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s Shadow Brexit<\/a> Secretary she was appalled at what she describes as his \u201cawful, awful chicanery\u201d.<\/p>\n She believes Labour was determined to \u201cstop us leaving despite the huge vote\u201d in the 2016 referendum and she is \u201cabsolutely\u201d sure his long-term ambition is to see the UK back in the EU fold.<\/p>\n \u201c[He] is obviously a total Europhile,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n His Brexit \u201creset\u201d, she claims, is \u201cjust another polite word for getting us back in\u201d.<\/p>\n Today, she says, Brussels, is \u201cmissing our money\u201d.<\/p>\n She considers it \u201cvery depressing\u201d so many EU laws remain on the British statute book but she has no regrets about campaigning so hard to get the country out of the club.<\/p>\n \u201cTen years on, there are lots of problems about what’s happened but if there was a vote tomorrow I would vote to Leave again,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Kate Hoey has moved from the Commons to the Lords and remains an ardent parliamentary campaigner (Image: Adam Gerrard \/ Daily Express)<\/p>\n She was one of a small clutch of pro-Brexit Labour MPs in the Commons but when she campaigned in traditional Labour territory, in so-called Red Wall seats, she was struck by the strength of support for breaking away.<\/p>\n \u201cI remember during the big rallies in working class areas up north,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople would come up to me at the end and say, ‘Oh, thank goodness there’s a Labour MP here’.\u201d<\/p>\n She is sorry not to see a new generation of maverick MPs in Labour ranks today who are prepared to challenge party orthodoxy.<\/p>\n Looking at the current crop of MPs, she says: \u201cYou wonder, \u2018Do they have an independent thought ever, any of them’?\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n She has ready advice for how Sir Keir can rescue the party.<\/p>\n \u201cLeave right away,\u201d she says, adding: \u201cGo back to the law. You\u2019re obviously obsessed about international law. Go back and be a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n There was a flurry of speculation in January that she would join Reform UK after Mr Farage said a Labour defection was imminent.<\/p>\n Technically, she sits as an unaffiliated peer. And she says it is \u201clovely\u201d not to have to deal with party whips (\u201cnot that I ever really listened to the whips much\u201d). But she can see the appeal of Reform.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the country is looking for a big shake-up,\u201d she says. \u201cI think the country’s fed up with the established two-party system.<\/p>\n \u201cI think a lot of people will vote Reform because they think they couldn’t do any worse.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6780947.jpg\" "\\"Kate")
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![\"Nigel](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/6780952.jpg\" "\\"Nigel")
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