Glenys Kinnock, the senior Labour politician and wife of the former leader Neil Kinnock, has died aged 79.
In a statement on Sunday, her family said: “It is with the deepest sorrow that we announce the death of Glenys Kinnock. Glenys died peacefully in her sleep in the early hours of Sunday morning at home in London. She was the beloved wife and life partner of Neil, the cherished mother of Steve and Rachel and an adored grandmother.”
Kinnock was a member of the European parliament for 15 years, representing Wales from 1994. In 2009, Gordon Brown appointed her as Europe minister and gave her a life peerage to enable her to join the government.
She met her husband, Neil, at university and married him in 1967. They had two children: Stephen, who is now a Labour MP and shadow minister, and Rachel, who previously worked for the party.
Kinnock appeared regularly by her husband’s side during his unsuccessful general election campaign in 1992, after which she decided to enter elected politics herself.
She told the BBC: “I had never ever really wanted to stand for elected office, but after we lost the general election we knew our lives had to take a new direction. I suddenly thought I might throw my hat in the ring for the South Wales East European constituency and from then on that was the decision I made, I never looked back and I’m glad I didn’t.”
While in Brussels, she took a particular interest in international development, serving on the development and cooperation committee as well as being Labour’s spokesperson on international development in the European parliament.
Her 15-year stint as an MEP came to an end when Brown asked her to replace Caroline Flint as a minister in the Foreign Office, giving her the title Lady Kinnock of Holyhead to do so. She was appointed as Europe minister and moved three months later to take over the portfolio for Africa and the UN.
Kinnock was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2017 at the age of 73. Writing last year in the Sunday Times, her children said: “We can’t imagine what that day [when she was diagnosed] was like for her. She never complained, but we know she was terrified. For such a formidable, strong, intelligent, funny and dignified woman to feel her mind slipping away must have been devastating.”
Her family said on Sunday: “As long as she could, she sustained her merriment and endless capacity for love, never complaining and with the innate courage with which she had confronted every challenge throughout her life.”
They added: “Neil was with her in her final moments. They had been married for 56 years. A proud democratic socialist, she campaigned, in Britain and internationally, for justice and against poverty all her life.”
Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, said: “Glenys was a passionate lifelong campaigner for social justice at home and abroad. She supported Neil through his leadership and went on to have an impressive political career of her own as a member of the European parliament, in the House of Lords and as a minister in the last Labour government, focused on Europe and Africa.”
He added: “What we will all remember is Glenys as a true fighter for the Labour party and the values of the labour movement, a pioneering woman, to whom we owe an enormous debt.”
Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair said she was an “enormous support to Neil but she was a leader in her own right”.
Blair, who was Labour leader between 1994 and 2007, said she was “incredibly smart, brave, determined and resolute in standing up for what she believed was right. Whether in fighting the cause of development, and the eradication of global poverty, social justice in Britain, equality for women or making the case for a European Union of weight and influence in the world, Glenys was passionate and persuasive.”
Gordon Brown, Blair’s successor in Downing Street, spoke of his and his wife Sarah’s sadness following Kinnock’s death. He said she had borne her lengthy illness with “great fortitude”.
“All who met Glenys admired her for her generosity, her warmth and her passionate support for the best of national and international causes,” he said.
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