A former Miss Sheppey ended up the centre of a so-called Macegate controversy in the House of Commons.

Jo-Anne Crowder, 46, wrestled the ceremonial mace from Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle on Monday.

The commotion, captured live on TV, has since gone viral on social media.

A furious Russell-Moyle had grabbed the mace from its resting place on the table after Prime Minister Theresa May announced she was postponing the vote on her Brexit deal.

As he marched it out of the chamber Jo-Anne, the daughter of MP Gordon Henderson’s wife Louise, intervened and marched it back again.

The former Sheppey Comprehensive pupil admitted this week: “Yes, it was little old me.

“I can’t say too much because it is sensitive but I have told everyone it was all in a day’s work.

“I saw the sovereign mace being carried out of the chamber so I carried it back in again.

“I have been called all sorts of things like the ‘lady with the sword’ or a ‘white-haired woman.’ It’s been really funny.”

It was in 1990 that she first won a job as a secretary in parliament.

Two years later, the former Sheppey carnival princess went on to take the crown and become Miss Sheppey.

She has been at the Commons for 28 years and is now Associate Serjeant At Arms who wears a traditional court dress, complete with sword.

After the mace was returned, Mr Speaker John Bercow personally thanked her for her quick reactions.

Proud mum Louise said: “Without the mace in place, the House of Commons cannot debate or pass any laws.

“As an Associate Serjeant at Arms, Jo-Anne represents the Serjeant at Arms and keeps order in the Chamber Galleries.”

“I have been called all sorts of things like the ‘lady with the sword’ or a ‘white-haired woman'..." Jo-Anne Crowder

Jo-Anne is also assistant private secretary to the chairman of Ways and Means, a government department which provides revenue to meet national expenditure.

Russell-Moyle was banned for the rest of the day. He Tweeted: “Thankfully they haven’t locked me in the Tower of London but if they had, I’d expect May to be in the cell next to me for her treatment of Parliament today.”

The scuffle of the mace even made the New York Times. It wrote: “At the exit, a white-haired woman emerged to grab the sceptre from the offending member of parliament.

“He gave it up without a fight and she ended the brief rebellion in Parliament.”

The five-foot long silver-gilt mace represents the royal authority of the crown and was made for Charles II when he was restored to the throne in 1660.

Each day the Serjeant-at-Arms takes the mace into the House at the beginning and end of a sitting.

The last time it was used in anger was by Labour’s John McDonnell, now the Shadow Chancellor, in 2009 when he was suspended for five days after a heated exchange about Heathrow’s third runway.

Before that it was a young Michael Heseltine, now Lord Heseltine, who grabbed it in 1976 and waved it above his head at the Labour benches. For that incident he was dubbed Tarzan.