Jacob Rees-Mogg loses seat to Labour in general election

Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg has lost his seat amid Labour securing a majority in the 2024 general election. 

At just before 5am on Friday (5 July), the Labour Party hit 326 seats out of 650, officially handing them a majority in the next parliament. 

Rees-Mogg, who last year claimed that “you can’t offend the dead”, during a GB News broadcast about anti-LGBTQ+ hate-crime and the death of trans teen Brianna Ghey, is one of the many Conservative MPs to lose his seat.

The Brexit campaigner and close ally of Boris Johnson didn’t fare as well in the election as he lost his North East Somerset seat to Labour’s Dan Norris, who won with 20,739 votes, while he secured 15,420.

In the constituency Reform secured 7,424 votes, the Liberal Democrats garnered 3,878, and the Greens ended with 3,222, as reported by The Independent.

Following the result being declared, Rees-Mogg congratulated Norris and Sir Keir Starmer, who he said “has led his party to what seems to be a historic victory. And this is the great virtue of our democracy, so I congratulate both of them”. 

The incoming MP for North East Somerset and Hanham constituency, Norris, said: “Keir Starmer changed the Labour Party and he will now change the country for the better. This is a victory for integrity: no more one more rule for them, another for everyone else. 

“It’s a victory for stability: never forget the economic chaos for which the British people are still paying the price. Now let’s get to work.”

Rees-Mogg joins Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt and Jonny Mercer, in being one of the many Tory giants to lose their seats. 

The former MP has previously hit out at LGBTQ+ campaigners for “shutting down debate” on transgender issues, despite news outlets continuing to offer a platform to anti-trans voices. 

In 2021 he backed former SNP’s Joanna Cherry, who was defeated in the election by Labour’s Scott Arthur, after she gave a speech in the House of Commons arguing for the right to “debate” the “ideology that any man can self-identify as a woman”.