How a small rural town that toppled Britain’s Conservatives is emblematic of the country’s democratic upheaval

THETFORD, England — With its historic stone-clad houses and pleasant fields, Thetford is an unlikely setting for an electoral bloodbath. But voters here on Friday morning unexpectedly ousted former Prime Minister Liz Truss from her seat in Parliament, bringing down the biggest beast in the most disastrous election in the Conservative Party’s 190-year history.

This picturesque market town in the sweeping lowlands of eastern England was supposed to be a right-wing rural hub. This time, however, he voted for the opposition Labor Party for the first time since the 1950s, helping to catapult Prime Minister Keir Starmer, a self-described socialist, into 10 Downing St.

Many here said they had little enthusiasm for Labour, echoing national polls. Instead, they voted to punish the Tories – a guttural expression of democratic anger after 14 years of scandals and failed policies that have left the world’s sixth-largest economy stagnant and decrepit.

“People will be pleased to see the back of Truss,” postal worker Mick Callaghan, 61, told NBC News as he made his rounds. “This town has gone bankrupt, with the mortgages going up and the general mess the Tories have made.”

Nearby, Glenis Stevenson, a retired housekeeper, discussed that night’s drama with a group of friends outside the local Thetford Baptist church.

“We used to always vote Conservative, but not this time,” said the 90-year-old. “They don’t care about helping people like us; they only care about the rich, not working class people.”

The narrative in Thetford is Britain in microcosm.

Thursday’s election saw Labor win 412 seats – almost a record – to the Conservatives’ 121 – the lowest figure since its founding in the 1830s. It was a notable change from 2019, when the Labor Party’s defeat was so comprehensive that experts predicted recovery would take years or decades.

This was not the case, such is the dizzying volatility of modern British politics. In both elections, places once considered “safe” seats for both parties saw their supposed tribal alliances turned upside down and, in some cases, reversed again.

Truss is accused of playing a major role in the Conservatives’ deep malaise.

Although she won a majority of 26,000 votes in the 2019 election, and was not expected to come under serious pressure this time, she lost her seat to the Labor candidate, Terry Jermy, by 640 votes.

Part of this was likely due to her ignominious reputation following her brief and haphazard stint as prime minister in 2022.

Truss lasted just 49 days in office, taking on the UK’s top job following the resignation of her predecessor, Boris Johnson, following months of ongoing scandals.

She had by far the shortest term of any prime minister in history, discarded by her own lawmakers after announcing unfunded tax cuts that spooked markets and triggered a financial catastrophe that drove up people’s mortgage rates.

This has had a direct impact on people like Lucy Howe, 26, who said her monthly payments have risen by £500 ($640) a month, crushing a pre-school worker on maternity leave.

“I’ve never voted before, but this time I voted Labour,” she said, pushing her four-month-old baby, Louis, in a pram along Thetford’s main street. “I’m not a person who really likes politics,” she added, but “we haven’t had a good few years and it was time for a change.”

Brexit looms large over all this, with most economists saying it continues to hamper the UK’s efforts to recover from its financial stagnation. Paradoxically, the 2016 decision to leave the European Union has barely been mentioned during this campaign, with most parties wary of reopening a messy chapter in Britain’s history that many here now consider to have been a mistake.

Although Labor has a huge majority in the House of Commons, the lower house of the UK Parliament, Labor knows the roles could be reversed next time. He did not win this election by garnering millions more votes; in fact, its vote share was down from 2019.

What changed was an unprecedented collapse in conservative support.

Some went to the centrist Liberal Democrats. The majority went to Reform UK, the populist anti-immigration party led by Donald Trump’s insurgent ally Nigel Farage. Reform was founded just four years ago and won just five seats, despite an impressive 4 million votes.

However, Farage sees this year as a springboard for the next elections in 2029.

“Reform will certainly be in power at some point,” said James Lumley, 61, a farmer who voted for the far-right upstarts after a lifetime of supporting the Conservatives.

He was talking politics on a bench outside a local pub, proudly dressed in a Union flag T-shirt, camouflage pants and a beige corduroy sports jacket. He said top politicians “treated us like mushrooms: they kept us in the dark and fed us pig wash.”

“I prefer Conservatives to Labour, but the Conservatives are still about as useful as a chocolate fireguard,” he said. With relish, the self-described eccentric who said he left his British flag trousers at home added: “The Conservatives are finished.”

That’s quite a statement in South West Norfolk, the parliamentary constituency where Thetford sits. The Conservatives have dominated the region since the 1880s. And Liz Truss has been a local legislator since 2010, with a colossal and seemingly unassailable majority.

The city’s architecture and winding alleys can feel like a museum to the visitor, with some buildings dating back to the 1400s. The city evokes a past, perhaps partly imaginary, England portrayed in the 1970s sitcom “Dad’s Army,” about soldiers from home front in World War II, filmed nearby.

Thetford was also the birthplace of American founder Thomas Paine in 1737, and his golden statue surveys the town square.

In a story familiar to countless other towns, some of Thetford’s “old world” buildings have been taken over by low-rent shops with names like TIME2VAPE. Others are completely empty, victims of high taxes on local businesses and online shopping that have destroyed high street retail across the country.

While Labor won the seat, reformist candidate Toby McKenzie was close behind with just under 10,000 votes, almost as many as the former prime minister, splitting the right wing and handing victory to Labor.

The specter of Brexit is felt not just in the economy but also in immigration, which has continued to rise despite promises from campaigners that Brexit would see it fall.

“Everything we worked for and what our fathers fought for in the war is now being taken over by foreigners,” said Shirley Johnson, 78, a retired chef dressed in Betty Boop style and sitting on her scooter.

She said she wasn’t racist. Her late husband was a black American from Houston, Texas, and the couple has five children. “I’m not blaming people: if I was in a war zone and I had three kids, of course I would try to come here,” she said. “It’s the government’s fault.”

This tension is visible in the huge number of Eastern European food stores that now line the city’s streets. Lithuanians, Bulgarians and Romanians say they don’t take much trouble.

“Anyway, if they sent us back home, I wouldn’t mind,” said Ineta Omel, 23, who moved here from Lithuania with her family at age 14 and now works as a receptionist. “I could!” retorts her sister, Kamile, 21, sitting next to her on a bench under the bow of a tall tree. “I built my life here.”

They both laugh.

These street debates aside, equally important to the narrative are the people who refused to participate. Trust in politics, the media and other institutions is at a record high. And provisional turnout estimates were just 60%, at least the lowest in the last 20 years.

“All these politicians are full of shit,” said Bob, 68, a retired plasterer who declined to give his last name. “You just can’t trust any of them.”