- Former British lawmaker Ann Widdecombe was killed last week in what police are investigating as a targeted attack that may have been politically motivated.
- A 28-year-old suspect allegedly traveled 300 miles to Widdecombe’s home, while an earlier suspect was released without charge.
- Widdecombe, a longtime conservative and Reform UK figure, was killed amid a period of heightened political unrest in Britain.
Former British lawmaker Ann Widdecombe, 78, was found dead in her apartment last Thursday, following what British police are investigating as a “targeted attack.”
After serving several decades in Parliament, Widdecombe was spending her retirement helping Reform UK from her home on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon.
Her current suspected killer, a 28-year-old white British man, is believed to have driven 300 miles from northern England to Widdecombe’s home, beaten her, then driven back up north. CCTV footage shows the suspect leave his property with what appeared to be a wooden stick in his cargo shorts pocket.
When news of Widdecombe’s death emerged, police initially said there was “nothing to suggest it was politically motivated.”
However, on Monday, authorities walked back the statement after detectives discovered materials in the current suspect’s home, where he lived alone, that suggested political ideology may have driven the act.
Widdecombe’s death comes during a time of particular political upheaval in the U.K.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer is set to step down next Monday, July 20, just two years into his stint in office. The final months of his premiership were dotted by large-scale protests, which erupted over the death of 18-year-old Henry Nowak and the attempted public beheading of 44-year-old Stephen Ogilvie.
The country’s shift toward political violence is concerning, Douglas Carswell, a former Member of Parliament and current president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, told the Deseret News.
“The idea that a woman in her late 70s would be murdered in her home because of her politics. ... I think the authorities need to be very, very careful in how they handle this,” he said.
Carswell met Widdecombe in 1997, when he volunteered for MP Michael Howard’s campaign. “I came across Ann Widdecombe then, because she basically sunk his campaign,” he said. “She made a very famous speech where she famously described him as a ‘creature of the night.’”
“So I didn’t start out entirely warmly disposed towards her, but I came to know her when I became an MP,” he continued. “She was always very down to earth, very approachable — she was one of those people who would talk the same to everyone."
What were Widdecombe’s politics?
Widdecombe served as a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. She advocated for the U.K. to leave the European Union in 2020, and she later joined Reform UK as the party’s Immigration and Justice spokeswoman.
News outlets and radio stations regularly had Widdecombe join their shows remotely from her home in southwestern England.
The morning she died, Widdecombe appeared remotely on TalkTV to defend the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, against scrutiny that he accepted a £5 million gift from cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne.
Widdecombe opposed abortion and assisted suicide. She held traditional conservative views and was critical of the U.K.’s decision legalize gay marriage.
Screenshots emerged on Saturday from ITV, a British TV network, of a text conversation Widdecombe had with a producer the day she died.
She was supposed to appear on another segment that Wednesday afternoon, and at 12:48 p.m., the producer messaged Widdecombe, “Hi Ann could you join the zoom now please.” The producer called Widdecombe three times, and at 12:55 p.m., they sent, “Hi Ann is everything okay?”
‘Things seem to be changing dramatically’
Carswell recalled doing voter outreach in 2021 in a Labour-dominated area of the U.K. “I would be a minority of one in an entire town while out canvassing, and not once would anyone even imply any physical threat ever,” he said.
“And that has changed. We don’t know the full facts, but Widdecombe’s murder looks like something really, really sinister,” Carswell said. “A number of things seem to be changing dramatically.”
Over the past several years, the U.K.’s policing system has faced accelerated scrutiny for treating individuals differently based on their race.
The issue came to a head in early June, after an officer’s body camera footage of Henry Nowak was released.
Now viewed more than 30 million times, the video showed Nowak laying on his stomach. He told officers he’d been stabbed, to which one officer responded, “I don’t think you have mate.” Nowak was put in handcuffs. His killer, Vickrum Digwa, stood to the side and told police officers that Nowak had harassed him with racist remarks.
Where is England headed with political violence?
Great Britain will continue to struggle with political violence if its residents’ moral codes are rooted in politics, Carswell told the Deseret News.
“Politics is not the most fundamental ethical identity system in the world. And if you think it is, you end up in this Manichaean view. You think it’s good against evil, and you’re good, and anyone who is not with you is evil,” Carswell said.
He continued, “I think this is a problem that particularly affects the left, and I have a horrible feeling — and I speak as someone who lives on the right politically — that we’re not far away from a time when that same moral dysfunction starts to apply to people on the right, and they begin to think like a tribe."
Carswell referenced Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage’s initial response to Nowak’s murder, in which he said, “I suggest the rest of us respond to this with pure, cold rage.”
“What was disconcerting is when Nigel made his point, which was a sensible, middle-of-the-road point that we have a right to feel angry about this, people then demonized Nigel and suggested that he was stirring up trouble,” Carswell said.
He continued, “This is the problem, ordinary people are not allowed to spot what’s going on and talk about it and debate it without themselves being demonized. And this is what will push the right into real extremism.”
Carswell addressed the present investigation into Widdecombe’s death. “If the authorities don’t handle it carefully, the reaction will be, ‘Well, you can’t trust the police. You can’t trust the authorities. They’re not going to keep our representatives secure.’ And that’s that’s when you enter real, real trouble,” he said.