General Election 2024: Former Prime Minister Liz Truss loses South West Norfolk seat

  • Watch the moment former Prime Minister Liz Truss loses her seat in South West Norfolk.

Former Prime Minister Liz Truss has lost her seat, becoming the biggest Tory casualty on a painful night for the party.

She was beaten in South West Norfolk by Labour's Terry Jermy by more than 600 votes.

There were gasps and cheers as the results were read out, following a delay of several minutes as candidates waited for Ms Truss.

Some of those watching began a slow hand clap before she appeared, without wearing a Conservative rosette.

Ms Truss, who holds the record for the shortest-serving prime minister at 44 days, was defending a majority of 26,195, making it the 13th safest Tory seat nationally.

Speaking afterwards, she refused to apologise to the people of Norfolk, but said: “I think the issue we faced as Conservatives is we haven’t delivered sufficiently on the policies people want.

“And that means keeping taxes low, but also particularly on reducing immigration. And I think that’s been a crucial issue here in South West Norfolk, that was the number one issue that people raised on the doorstep with me.”

Asked whether she accepted some responsibility for that, Ms Truss said: “I agree. I was part of that. That’s absolutely true.

“But during our 14 years in power, unfortunately we did not do enough to take on the legacy we’d been left, in particular things like the Human Rights Act that made it very difficult for us to deport illegal immigrants. And that is one of the reasons I think we’ve ended up in the situation we are now.”

She said “I’ve got a lot to think about” when asked whether she wanted to stay in Tory politics.

For much of the campaign, it had been assumed Ms Truss would hold the seat comfortably, but in recent weeks talk has been of growing opposition confidence.

South West Norfolk had been in Conservative hands since 1964.

In his victory speech, Mr Jermy dedicated his victory to his father, whom he said had died following delayed hospital care.

The result means Rishi Sunak is the only prime minister from the last 14 years whose seat remains blue, after Labour took Uxbridge and South Ruislip and the Liberal Democrats took Witney, Maidenhead, and Henley and Thame.

After she lost her seat, Ms Truss hugged allies and left the counting hall in King’s Lynn without making a speech.

Full results for South West Norfolk:

  • Terry Jermy - Labour - 11,847 (26.48%)

  • Liz Truss - Conservatives - 11,217 (25.07%)

  • Toby Mckenzie - Reform UK - 9,958 (22.26%)

  • James Bagge - Independent - 6,282 (14.04%)

  • Josie Ratcliffe - Lib Dems - 2,618 (5.85%)

  • Pallavi Devulapalli - Green - 1,838 (4.11%)

  • Earl Elvis of East Anglia - Official Monster Raving Loony Party - 338 (1.65%)

  • Gary Conway - Heritage Party - 160 (0.36%)

  • Lorraine Douglas - Communist - 77 (0.17%)

Subscribe free to our Election Briefing newsletter here for exclusive and original campaign coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox at 5pm every weekday