The Labour Party’s sweeping win in the UK general election decimated the Conservative Party from the top to the bottom as it confronted the smallest number of seats in the party’s two-century history.
With almost all the results in on Friday morning, leftist Labour had won 410 seats in the 650-seat House of Commons and the Conservatives 118.
Leading the way to the election exit was former prime minister Liz Truss who lost her seat, conceding her South West Norfolk constituency to Labour by 630 votes, having previously held a huge 24,180 majority.
The ex-premier had plenty of company with a host of other senior Tories ejected from Parliament, in a result set to reshape the direction of the party, the BBC reports.
Two other big names now without a place in Westminster are House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt, who was tipped as a future Tory leadership contender, and former cabinet minister Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Speaking after her defeat, Truss told the BBC her party had not “delivered sufficiently” in areas such as “keeping taxes low” and reducing immigration.
Asked if she would stay on in Conservative politics, she said “I’ve got a lot to think about” and asked people to “give me a bit of time.”
In all a record number of Conservative Cabinet members lost their seats, beating the previous record of seven defeats in 1997.
Twelve ministers attending cabinet have now departed including Defence Secretary Grant Shapps, Justice Secretary Alex Chalk and Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan.
Other grandee Tory casualties include:
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- Former deputy prime minister Therese Coffey lost a 20,000 majority in Suffolk Coastal, leaving Labour supporters jubilant.
- Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer lost to Labour in Plymouth Moor View
- Education Secretary Gillian Keegan lost to the Liberal Democrats in Chichester, a West Sussex seat the Tories have held for a century
- Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer lost Ely and East Cambridgeshire, also to the Liberal Democrats
- Chief Whip Simon Hart – in charge of party discipline – lost to Plaid Cymru in Caerfyrddin, as the Tories lost all their seats in Wales
- Michael Fabricant lost his seat in Lichfield to Labour’s Dave Robertson who won 17,232 votes – a majority of 810.
Former justice secretary Sir Robert Buckland, who also lost his seat in the election, told the BBC his party faced “electoral Armageddon”.
He said too many Conservatives had focused on “personal agendas and jockeying for position” instead of “concentrating on doing the job that they were elected to do.”
Rising poverty, crumbling infrastructure, open cross-Channel borders with France letting in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, and overstretched National Health Service led to gripes about “Broken Britain” in the lead up to the election.