By Jon Craig, Chief Political Correspondent

Sky News Online – 8 July 2025

Leading Thatcherites paid tribute to Norman Tebbit in the Commons, claiming he was the original Brexiteer and could have been prime minister had it not been for the Brighton bomb. Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh told MPs:

"I served with him in parliament between 1983 and 1992, and I suppose I am one of the last Thatcherites left standing here. To us, he was an icon of everything we believed in about small government and deregulation. He was the original Brexiteer and the original campaigner against woke."

Sir Edward said when Margaret Thatcher resigned in 1990 he asked Tebbit if he would stand as leader of the Conservative party.

"To my regret, he felt that he could not,"

he said.

"The reason why was those awful events in the bombing of the Grand Hotel in 1984. He showed tremendous courage and stoicism. Above all, although he led our party to victory as chairman in the 1987 election, he refused high office because he wanted to look after his wife Margaret. He devoted his whole life to her in terms of love and devotion as after those terrible events she was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life."

Sir John Whittingdale, later Mrs Thatcher's political secretary, said:

"I started working as special adviser to Norman Tebbit in the Department of Trade and Industry on the Monday morning after the Brighton bomb. For those first few weeks, I went to visit him with members of his private office in Stoke Mandeville hospital. The reason why he was in that specialist unit was that, while he was badly injured, he wanted to be nearby to his wife. He felt his first duty had to be to look after his wife. It was a terrific loss to my party and to the country when he felt that he was no longer able to serve in government because of the need to care for Margaret. Had that not happened, he might well have become prime minister."

And Sir Julian Lewis told MPs:

"Courage and commitment really are what encapsulated his character. He proved that when serving his country in the inherently dangerous role of a Royal Air Force pilot. And he proved it further in achieving something that prime ministers alone might have failed to have achieved in tackling the abuse of trade union power by unrepresentative militants. Trade unions are much more representative of their memberships today thanks to what he did."