Ex-Labour minister Baroness Glenys Kinnock dies aged 79

Labour peer Baroness Glenys Kinnock has died at the age of 79, her family has announced.

The Labour activist is survived by her husband Lord Neil Kinnock, who led the Labour Party from 1983 until 1992, and two children including Stephen Kinnock, a serving Labour MP.

The former school teacher was a prominent politician in her own right after her husband’s spell as opposition leader, serving as a Member of the European Parliament for Wales from 1994 to 2009.

She was given a government job in the Foreign Office under prime minister Gordon Brown in 2009, receiving a life peerage to allow her to take up the post from the Lords.

Her family said she “died peacefully in her sleep in the early hours of Sunday morning, at home in London” with her husband of 56 years by her side in her final moments.

The family statement continued: “A proud democratic socialist, she campaigned, in Britain and internationally, for justice and against poverty all her life.

“Passionate to the end about education, she was a valued and respected school teacher before she began her own political career, as a Member of the European Parliament, then being made a peer in the House of Lords from where she served as minister for three of the great passions of her life, Europe, Africa and the UN.

“She was a great friend to many people and causes and was truly loved.

“Glenys endured Alzheimer’s after being diagnosed in 2017 and, as long as she could, 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.”

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Gordon Brown, who worked closely with the Baroness, paid tribute to her “warmth of personality” and her “passionate support of the best of causes”.

“A highly effective and popular minister for Europe in the last Labour Government, Glenys Kinnock will be mourned across the world and remembered as a great Ambassador for Britain having also served in the European Parliament for 15 years,” he said.

“Glenys and Neil formed a great partnership admired by all and our thoughts are with Neil, Stephen, Rachel and their families,” Mr Brown added.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to Baroness Kinnock on behalf of the whole party as a “pioneering woman to whom we owe an enormous debt”.

He 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.

“Neil and Glenys had the most wonderful partnership, there for each other through thick and thin, with a love and commitment that was instantly obvious when you saw them together. As the family have detailed, in recent years that meant looking after Glenys as Alzheimer’s did its worst.

“But 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. My sincere condolences to Neil, Stephen, Rachel and all the family at this sad time.”

Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair said Baroness Kinnock’s death would be “mourned in many countries and corners of the Earth”.

He said in a statement: “She was a huge figure in progressive politics for decades: 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. She was of course an enormous support to Neil but she was a leader in her own right.

“And as a couple, they were a joy to be near, full of fun, the life and soul of any gathering.

“In her last years, as Stephen and Rachel have written, she took her illness with the same steadfastness which had governed her life.

“Our deepest condolences to Neil, to Rachel and to Stephen and to all the wider Kinnock family. Glenys will be mourned in many countries and corners of the earth.”