Terry Newman: Is it no longer safe to be a conservative? 

Ann Widdecombe speaks at Reform UK South West Conference on November 09, 2024. Photo by: Finnbarr Webster/Getty News Images.

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Ann Widdecombe, a 78-year-old former Tory who crossed over to Reform before retiring, was found dead in her Dartmoor, U.K., home by police last week, about 24 hours after she stopped responding to text messages from a Channel 5 producer and failed to appear on the show remotely.

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Before the messages between Widdecombe and the producer stopped, she had been in good spirits, chatting and joking.

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Then, there was silence. The producer’s messages were left unread. His calls unanswered. He called her agent.

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Police discovered Widdecombe’s body the following day at her retirement home, which she loving referred to as “Widdecombe’s Rest.”

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Police have described Widdecombe’s murder as a “targeted attack.” As of Monday, the investigation was taken over by counter-terrorism police, who are considering whether the 28-year-old British national who’s in custody may have been motivated by “left-wing, anarchist and single-issue terrorism,” which appears to be common enough of a threat that U.K. police have an acronym for it, LASIT.

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Widdecombe was a well-known Catholic social conservative who advocated for persecuted Christians globally — so much so that she received a papal damehood from Pope Benedict XVI in 2013.

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In 2011, shortly after her retirement from the British House of Commons, she gave a speech in which she claimed that, when it comes to government, “You stand a better chance of earnest representation if you are a hedgehog than if you are a persecuted Christian.”

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In a 2019 speech for the Oxford Union Society, Widdecombe argued against deplatforming and censorship. In it, she explained why free speech was important to her, as someone who grew up in the wake of the Second World War and lived through the Cold War.

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And now she’s been murdered.

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In a press conference, Reform U.K. spokesperson Zia Yusuf said, “I cannot tell you why Ann was killed. That is for the police and the courts. What I can tell you is that counter-terrorism police are investigating her murder as a suspected act of terrorism.”

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Yusuf then told those present that he could also tell them about “the climate in which she was killed,” which he described as “a relentless narrative from politicians and the media that Reform U.K. is a threat — a threat to be urgently stopped.” Yusuf claimed that this narrative is “so relentless, it constitutes incitement.”

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He further alleged that the party is being targeted “because we say things that are unfashionable among many in Westminster, but are popular in the country at large.”

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Yusuf said it was difficult to share the type of comments that had been said about Widdecombe, who he referred to as a “treasure,” but that it was important because “we cannot ever allow this to happen again.”