How ‘accidental politician’ Terry Jermy ousted Truss – and election night’s great shock unfolded

Were you up for Truss? Of all the sensational Labour victories on election night, one certainly stood out – the defeat of former Prime Minister Liz Truss by Terry Jermy by just 630 votes. 

The constituency of South West Norfolk was, with a 26,000-vote majority in 2019, not a target for Labour, but the scale of animosity towards Truss after crashing the economy was so great that Jermy was catapulted into parliament with one of the biggest swings of the election – second only to Clacton.

‘It’s Terry or Truss’

Jermy faced a number of contenders in the constituency, including Reform UK and a well-known independent candidate. 

“Within about a week of the election starting, I said to my team, the person that will win will be the person that convinces the public that they’re capable of beating Liz Truss,” Jermy explained.

“I was coming across people who were lifelong Conservatives time and time again telling me they would not vote for Truss. I think I went for the entirety of the election campaign where I did not find a single person that had something positive to say about her.”

READ MORE: Liz Truss loses South West Norfolk: Beaten by a lettuce, beaten by Labour

Jermy, who has served as a councillor for many years, recalled how stalwart supporters of the Conservatives who he hadn’t managed to win over in the past turned around and said they were backing him as the person most likely to beat Truss.

“It’s worth pointing out that we didn’t win the argument entirely, because there were still plenty of traditional Labour supporters who voted for the independent or indeed voted for Reform because they thought they were best placed to defeat Truss.

“We worked really hard, we ran a campaign slogan of ‘It’s Terry or Truss’ and that went down quite well.”

One element of the campaign that Jermy said worked “brilliantly” were correx boards, each with his face plastered on.

“We tried to get at least one in all the main villages, and it became the talk of the village. It was quite amusing,” he said.

“We had just one brave person who was prepared to put it up in each village and then all of a sudden we started getting phone calls from other people asking for a poster. That was one of the best things we did during the campaign.”

An ‘accidental politician’

Jermy describes himself as an “accidental politician”, having become involved in the Labour Party after writing to the local paper at the age of 15 about the state of a local play area.

“The local town council invited me along to come and talk about it, and I just kept turning up at the meetings and got involved. In Thetford, there were a couple of Labour councillors who took me under their wing and mentored me.”

From there, Jermy stood for election at the age of 22, beating the former headmaster of a local high school, before working his way up through local government over the years.

He said: “I don’t come from a political family. My family’s not political – my dad was an engineer and my mum working in a factory making drip bags for hospitals. I grew up on a council estate and it was always about representing where I lived and where I grew up.

READ MORE: ‘I used to work for Liz Truss. Here’s why I’m cautiously optimistic about Labour’

“I’m sort of an accidental politician. I never really wanted to be a politician as such, but it was a route to get things done.

“The main reason I decided to stand in the first place was I felt Truss took the area for granted. Particularly for me as a councillor that was really frustrating, because here we are trying to do everything we possibly can in the local community and I didn’t feel like the MP was that connected or concerned. I thought ‘I’ve got a profile, let’s go for it, let’s make her work for it’.”

‘Truss was third for most of the night’

When the exit poll dropped at 10pm, Jermy thought that South West Norfolk would remain in Conservative hands. He said many polls that had forecast large Labour leads nationally had not predicted the party to oust Liz Truss.

However, he said: “We knew that it wasn’t a normal election here in that sense. It was a very different type of campaign because of Truss and local issues.”

As the night went on, Jermy said he began receiving messages from counting agents saying Labour was winning in places they hadn’t expected to.

He said: “I thought, hold on, something is going on here. I got to the count a bit earlier than I had originally intended, because I thought whatever happens I want to enjoy the moment.

“I maintained for several weeks that nobody was winning with a majority of more than 1,000. I was always confident of that.”

READ MORE: ‘Callaghan reborn? Why the former PM is the Labour figure Starmer best evokes’

Was there a moment when Jermy knew he had won? “To be absolutely honest, I knew as soon as I got there – we were always in the lead,” he said.

Jermy revealed that for the majority of the night, his team thought Truss would actually be third, expecting Reform to pip her into second place.

He said: “We were primarily scrutinising the Reform vote because we thought they were the main challenge to us. As time went on, a couple of bundles seemed much better for Truss and we thought she’d then gone into second. I thought: ‘Have we missed something? Is this where she now leapfrogs back into first?’ But we were fairly confident we got our numbers right.

“I thought it was a majority of around 700, and it ended up being 630.”

‘We were all waiting for Truss to arrive’

One peculiar moment broadcast on national television to anyone still awake at 6.45am was slow clapping from people in the leisure centre as they waited for Truss to emerge onto the stage for the result. 

Truss has since explained in an interview with the Daily Telegraph that she almost missed the count after visiting McDonald’s with her husband and daughter.

She told the publication’s podcast: “We’d been told that we’d get half an hour’s notice to get to the count. I didn’t particularly want to hang around at the count, there were various dubious journalists from the BBC there.

“Suddenly we got a call that the results were going to be in ten minutes. We got on the road to the count, and it was only about seven minutes’ drive – but unfortunately, just at the moment we were crossing, we were approaching a railway line and the level crossing came down.”

Jermy tells a different tale of what it was like at the leisure centre as candidates and staff waited for the former Prime Minister’s arrival.

He said: “What most people don’t realise is that they actually finished counting at about 5am and they were sort of shuffling around with tables and papers whilst we were waiting for Liz Truss to make her way to the count.

“It was only about 6.30am that she arrived anywhere near and so we were all sort of waiting around doing nothing and all the counting had finished for quite a long while.

“When she got to the building, we were all given a sign as candidates to go on stage with the High Sherriff, but even then we were on stage for what felt like an eternity and she was still not appearing on the stage.

“That’s when people started slow hand clapping and started to get a bit restless – not Labour Party people I hasten to add.”

READ MORE: Sign up to our must-read daily briefing email on all things Labour

Once Truss made it on stage after much delay and the result was declared, Jermy exchanged a handshake and a few words with her. However, he said that he has not heard from Truss since, with no handover of casework.

He said: “I’m quite disappointed in that really. We are all here to serve the residents and we don’t want to let them down in the transition.”

Jeremy’s top priority in Westminster

For Jermy, his priority is serving residents as a good constituency MP.

“We’ve really missed out on that. I think a lot of people look at areas like South West Norfolk and see how beautiful it is and think there aren’t challenges here. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“There is a lot of rural poverty. There are a lot of challenges, particularly with health and social care, which was one of my campaign themes, but also challenges for small businesses, particularly for the farming community with climate change and the new world post-Brexit.

“There’s a lot of issues to get my teeth into.”

A spokesperson for Liz Truss said: “Jermy has already let down constituents by failing to oppose Labour’s potential cancellation of the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital and taking away pensioners’ winter fuel payments.

“Liz is diligently completing outstanding case work. Of course, due to data protection laws she cannot simply hand over constituents’ confidential information.”

SHARE: If you have anything to share that we should be looking into or publishing about this story – or any other topic involving Labour or the election – contact us (strictly anonymously if you wish) at [email protected]. 

SUBSCRIBE: Sign up to LabourList’s morning email here for the best briefing on everything Labour, every weekday morning. 

DONATE: If you value our work, please donate to become one of our supporters here and help sustain and expand our coverage.

PARTNER: If you or your organisation might be interested in partnering with us on sponsored events or content, email [email protected].