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6 months ago
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She became a house-hold name for her court battles over Brexit but businesswoman Gina Miller has a private side that few are aware of as the fiercely proud mother of a severely disabled daughter
And now MailOnline has been given unique insight into the long journey the millionaire businesswoman has travelled with her 36-year-old daughter Lucy Ann to help her fulfil her potential by finally having her own home and job.
In the sun-lit living room of that new home Gina, 59, told how she has fought for years – and continues to fight – to access the best possible care for her beloved daughter, as well as for others like her.
And Lucy Ann is clearly appreciative. Her face lit up as she told us: 'I like having a house.'
But her independence has been hard-fought. Lucy Ann was starved of oxygen during birth, leaving her with the mental capacity of a five or six year-old.
Gina Miller's daughter Lucy-Ann, 36, has significant learning difficulties and lives in assisted accommodation in London (Pictured together)
Gina says she has fought for years – and continues to fight – to access the best possible care for her beloved daughter, as well as for others like her (Pictured together)
Gina says: 'She is perfectly beautiful and, although you can't really tell from looking at her, she has special needs.'
Gina explains how a prolonged labour deprived Lucy Ann of oxygen at birth. She never cried and when aged two she made no attempt to walk.
The 59-year-old then took her daughter to see child experts. She said: 'Everyone was negative. I decided that she was just going to be the best she could be.'
Gina has told how her commitment to her daughter contributed to the end of the marriage to her childhood sweet-heart, Lucy Ann's father.
As a single mother, Gina juggled several jobs, including modelling, serving at Pizza Express, and later went to university to study law.
Lucy Ann was eventually diagnosed with dyslexia, dyspraxia and autism.
Businesswoman Gina Miller's new True and Fair party was unveiled in 2021 (Pictured: At the party launch in January 2022)
She suffered bullying at school, was groomed on Facebook and narrowly escaped an encounter with a middle-aged man pretending to be a teenager.
However, Gina's perseverance finally led to her daughter gaining the financial care package that would enable her to live an independent life.
'It took us nearly seven or eight years in total to try to get [Lucy Ann's care] package together,' she said.
'And then Covid hit.' Like many young people, Lucy Ann suffered during the two years of the pandemic.
Gina explained: 'With all the stress and everything she started self-harming, trying to take her own life… [People with special needs] experience the same stress, emotions and worries as everybody else.
'But she's been here since July. She's finally settled.'
Ms Miller is planning to lead the True and Fair party in elections against the Conservatives and Labour Party
Now she lives with two other young people with special needs who have the support of a team of around-the-clock carers.
Lucy Ann explains that the balloons in the room are left-over from her birthday celebrations earlier this week.
Wearing a bright-coloured t-shirt, summer shorts and smiling from ear to ear, Lucy Ann explains how she loves her new found independence.
'I love my mum but I don't want to live with her at the moment.
'Maybe that might change but at the moment I don't want to live with my mum as it makes me feel a little bit more grown up.'
She continued: 'Lucy Ann has a job working at a café two days a week.'
Lucy Ann pipes up: 'I get the bus to work!'
However, changes in disability benefits risk depriving Lucy Ann and people like her from leading independent lives, Gina claims.
Lucy-Ann had her own funding 'pulled' after a 20-minute interview with a 'bureaucrat' that left her with a £15,000 debt (Pictured: Gina with Lucy-Ann)
Eligibility to Personal Independent Payments [PIP] will be put under greater scrutiny, with the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Mel Stride, insisting people with 'mild' mental health problems should get back to work.
Lucy Ann had her own funding 'pulled' after a 20-minute interview with a 'bureaucrat' that left her with a £15,000 debt and facing court for failure to pay for her own care.
Gina explained: 'Lucy-Ann had a debt collector chasing her and was facing court action for some £15,000 she owed for her care.
'Some bureaucrat had decided she was no longer entitled to her care package after an interview of just 20 minutes.
'I contacted them but one department wouldn't speak to the other.
'Finally, they said it had all been a mistake and reinstated her care package.
Ms Miller has twice taken the government to court over Brexit. On the second case, which reached the Supreme Court, it was found that Boris Johnson's prorogation of Parliament to push through Brexit was unlawful
'These bureaucrats are trying not to pay vulnerable people to reduce the disability benefits bill. It is shamelessly demonising disabled people for cheap political gain.'
Lucy Ann added: 'I think it is unfair because we've got feelings too. We have the right to have a good life as well as other people.'
Gina Miller has also started up the True and Fair Party with a mission statement to clean up politics.
She explained: 'I started the True and Fair Party because I believe the existing system is broken, that the Status Quo parties are not interested in modernising our politics, in cleaning up Westminster and fighting corruption.'
Gina is standing as an MP in the forthcoming election in the Surrey stock-broker belt constituency of Epsom and Ewell, and hopes to transform the affluent suburb into a pioneer of 'Well-Being' to demonstrate a better society.
She said: 'I think it is very exciting that Epsom and Ewell can be the place where we pioneer a 'well-being' economy, where we put health and happiness into the community and boost its wealth as well as its health.'
Who is the anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller?
Businesswoman Gina Miller has for many become a household name over her involvement in two high-profile court cases on the biggest national question in decades.
Mother-of-three Mrs Miller was born in Guyana to a land-owning family with a mother as the attorney general, but grew up in Britain.
She studied law at the Polytechnic of East London but was unable to finish because her parents wanted her back home. She eventually obtained a degree in marketing and in 2017 an honorary law degree.
Married for the first time at 20, she had disabled daughter Lucy-Ann. Her second husband, she claims, was a drinker who beat her badly (he denies this), forcing her to flee with her daughter. For a time they lived like vagrants, sleeping in her 'little blue car' in multistorey car parks in Wiltshire.
She went on to become a successful City investment manager and also set up the No.1 Ladies' Investment Club for women in business.
Describing herself as a 'passionate person with a feisty tone of voice', Mrs Miller says she first took an interest in challenging the Brexit process after discussing with a lawyer her belief that the Prime Minister was not allowed under constitutional law to remove citizens’ rights without parliamentary consent.
In 2016, she challenged the government over its power to trigger article 50 without parliamentary approval. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and eventually forced then-PM Theresa May to hold a Commons vote.
After court ruling in her favour in January 2017, she became a hate figure for many Brexiteers, subject to intense vitriol.
The Metropolitan police revealed it had issued eight 'cease and desist' notices to people who had sent Miller threatening messages.
Two years afterwards, Gina and her family were still living under security. 'I was the most hated woman in Britain,' she said in 2019.
And it was also in 2019 when Mrs Miller returned to the highest court in the land, this time over Boris Johnson's prorogation of Parliament in an attempt to pass his Brexit bill.
While her initial challenge was dismissed the case was granted an appeal. Following a hearing in Scotland a few days later the case returned to the Supreme Court, where the prorogation was found to be unlawful.
Mrs Miller has stated in various interviews that she was only pressing on with the legal action as a matter of democracy and parliamentary supremacy.
She now has two young children with her third husband and live in a £7million townhouse in Chelsea, West London.
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