Former Welsh Tory MP dismisses speculation she may be seeking a seat in England as ‘gossip’

Martin Shipton 

Former Ynys Môn Tory MP Virginia Crosbie has dismissed as ‘gossip’ a suggestion that she hopes to resume her political career by seeking election in a constituency in the south-east of England.

Ms Crosbie was a surprising victor in Ynys Môn at the 2019 general election when she came through the middle and defeated both Labour and Plaid Cymru candidates. She succeeded Labour’s Albert Owen, who stood down after representing the seat since 2001.

She developed a reputation as a hard-working constituency MP and championed the campaign to develop a new nuclear power station on the island at Wylfa.

At the 2024 general election, when the tide was against the Conservatives, she put up a strong fight and lost to Plaid Cymru’s Llinos Medi by just 637 votes.

After her defeat she was one of the founders of a new UK-based nuclear investment fund called Nuclear Capital Partners.

A former investment banker, Ms Crosbie said at the time of the fund’s launch in December 2024: “Joining Nuclear Capital is the logical next step in my nuclear journey as we see huge developments in many countries such as recently announced UK pension reforms designed to kickstart infrastructure investment.

“The aim of the fund is to diversify the investment risk within nuclear by investing in and across the nuclear life cycle – fuel fabrication, new build, operation, and decommissioning – where opportunities present themselves.”

There has been speculation about whether Ms Crosbie would seek a return to the House of Commons at the next election.

This week the veteran political journalist Michael Crick posted on his X account Tomorrow’s MPs a message that read: “HENLEY & THAME: Virginia Crosbie, who was Conservative MP for Ynys Mon, 2019-24, has apparently moved to Henley, which is now Lib Dem. I hear she plans to run for the Conservative selection, though the contest is unlikely to start for many months.”

Nation.Cymru sought comment from Ms Crosbie via a friend in her former constituency.

A message came back stating: “She says it’s just gossip. To my knowledge she is not living in Henley.”
The former Henley seat was represented by Boris Johnson between 2001 and 2008. He resigned when he was elected Mayor of London.

During her five years as MP for Ynys Môn, Ms Crosbie was the target of a very high level of misogynistic abuse.

In 2021 she called on people across Britain to stand up against “cowardly” online trolls who target female public figures.

Threats

Since being elected two years earlier, Ms Crosbie had reported around 30 threats, abusive emails and social media posts to the police. Some abusers were Anglesey residents, others were not, and the vast majority stayed anonymous.

On Twitter the mother-of-three was called a “slag” so often she cancelled her account because, she told North Wales Live, “it didn’t seem very healthy to remain on it”.

Despite this, she continued to receive hate-filled abuse on other platforms and via email.

A troll who routed an email via Austria, to stay anonymous, labelled her a “perfect moral argument for abortion”.

She was routinely called a c***, and the insults were often personal, with many mocking her appearance.

There were threats too, such as that from a regular online critic who called her the “most useless incomer to Anglesey since the grey squirrel – that horrible invasive species that should be culled to protect the natives”.

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