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

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.

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

Then, there was silence. The producer’s messages were left unread. His calls unanswered. He called her personal assistant, who contacted her gardener.

The gardener discovered Widdecombe’s body the following day at her retirement home, which she lovingly referred to as “Widdecombe’s Rest.” She had been hit on the head with a hammer 21 times as she ate lunch, prosecutors say.

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 28-year-old Joshua Kerry, who was charged on Monday for her murder, was 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.

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 January 2013.

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.”

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.

And now she’s been murdered.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

He quoted Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, who had described Widdecombe as a “poisonous bigot” who wants to “drag us back to the 19th century” and “throw minorities out in the cold on the way.”

Yusuf stressed that Lammy had “boldly declared” that: “We must stand up to them before it’s too late.”

Yusuf also pointed a finger at the former health secretary Wes Streeting, who said: “If only science had a cure for Ann Widdecombe.”

He then noted that a woman on Twitter had said: “Ann Widdecombe better go this week. She is a little fascist beast.” Shockingly, he pointed out that this was written by Jess Phillips, former parliamentary under-secretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women and girls.

He further quoted Liberal Democrats Leader Ed Davey as saying, “The greatest threat to the Britain we love doesn’t come from Tehran or Moscow. It comes from within. I’m talking about Nigel Farage and Reform.”

Yusuf ended by saying, “Is it any wonder, with such rhetoric relentlessly levelled at Reform, that some may be moved to try to eliminate that supposed threat through lethal violence?”

One has to wonder whether such statements encouraged Heather Herbert, a 50-year-old transgender employee at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, who was recently arrested and charged with allegedly posting on social media that Widdecombe’s death was “good news,” and that she hoped it was an “extremely painful death.”

This sort of zealous dehumanization takes place elsewhere in the western world, as well, including in Canada.

Last Wednesday, protesters surrounded Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston’s car and smashed his windshield while the premier and staff were inside the vehicle. And on Thursday, at a pancake breakfast in Edmonton, a woman yelled at Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, “You’re a f—ing fascist.… You sold us out to corporations,” and had to be ushered away.

And being on the left doesn’t necessarily protect you from the left, either. A video circulating on social media shows Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi being accosted at a public event for having taken a picture with Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed at the Calgary Stampede. Nenshi eventually caved and released a statement apologizing for the “harm” the photograph caused.

This was the worst possible response. No politician should shrink and apologize to zealous leftists like this. The message it sends is that they were right and their methods are correct. Instead, a strong message needs to be sent: you don’t have the right to try to intimidate those you disagree with, through words or by force.

National Post

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