TRIBUTES have been paid to “firebrand” politician Teresa Gorman, who has died at the age of 83.

Ms Gorman, who represented Billericay from 1987 to 2001, was a prominent member of a group of Tory rebels who nearly brought down John Major’s government in 1992 in a dispute over the European Union treaty.

Former Southend MP Sir Teddy Taylor, who was another member of the so-called “Maastricht rebels”, paid tribute to his colleague.

Sir Teddy said: “It is very sad news. She had been ill for a long time, but we had been keeping in touch and I had only called to see her recently.

“She was a great friend in the House of Commons.

“She got involved in things because she never had any worries about doing the right thing.

“Teresa wasn’t out to get power. She was a hard worker as a local MP and everyone I spoke to thought she was a good, sincere person.

“She was one of the ‘old school’ who was more concerned with what was right and wrong, rather than party politics, and that is how she will be remembered.”

Former Echo deputy editor Peter Owen said Ms Gorman, who died on Friday, was an outspoken and determined individual.

He said: “She could be a firebrand.

She was an unrelenting Tory who never missed an opportunity to have a dig at her Labour opponents.

“Teresa was a good host to her constituents who saw her at the House of Commons, but she was certainly controversial and never held back from a fight.

“She was a determined lady and she played quite a role in her constituency. She was well-liked, but she wasn’t all milk and honey.”

Ms Gorman trained as a teacher and was a member of Westminster City Council before being elected as Billericay MP in 1987, her 12th attempt at being elected to Parliament.

Most recently, she lived in Orsett, and publicly declared her support for Ukip before local elections in 2012.

Writing on Twitter, Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: “Sad to hear of the death of friend Teresa Gorman, a devout eurosceptic and Maastricht rebel.”

Echo:

FOURTEEN years have passed since Teresa Gorman left politics, but I still feel the loss of her effervescent, feisty, combative, controversial, flirtatious, and endlessly entertaining presence.

Teresa erupted on to the scene from nowhere when she became MP for Billericay in 1987.

She arrived in Billericay, an apparent godsend to the Conservative Party, in the wake of the national scandal which saw the resignation of her predecessor, Harvey Proctor. She was an ex-teacher, a scientist with three degrees, and a successful businesswoman.

“After their experience with Harvey, the selectors wanted a safe pair of hands,” she said.

“They saw this mild, serious little schoolmarm, me, and thought, ‘she won’t upset anyone’...but instead of that mild little lady, they got me!”

Almost overnight she became one of the most famous MPs in Britain, thanks to her outspokenness, her colourful costumes, and the famous championing of hormone replacement therapy, which turned her into a star of women’s magazines and gossip columns.

Her off-the-cuff, on-the-record remarks to journalists (“John Major, not the brightest tool in the box, poor man”) were outrageous. She would always oblige you with some cheeky angle if you needed a headline.

To some eyes, Teresa could seem lightweight and even frivolous.

But those who dismissed her as a publicity seeker made an error of judgement. Their mistake was to think that the headline-grabbing lines (“How HRT improved my sex life!!”) were the real thing.

When you looked beyond and beneath the frolics – for instance, at her record as a grass-roots constituency MP – you could see that there was real substance.

And steel. Her true strengths, and her underlying seriousness of purpose, came to the fore when she became one of the rebels, famously tagged as “bastards” by Prime Minister John Major, at the time of the Maastricht Treaty negotiations.

The rebels were instrumental in derailing what had seemed to be the unstoppable juggernaut process of Euro adoption.

Teresa Gorman was a maverick in an age of clone politicians. She could be exasperating, but in her case, as it turned out, maverick was a branding to be worn with pride.

Echo: