Terry Jermy

Terry Jermy is the Labour MP for South West Norfolk, the seat he won on 4 July 2024 by defeating the former Prime Minister Liz Truss, whose 2019 majority of 26,195 he overturned into a Labour gain by 630 votes (1.4 per cent) on 26.7 per cent of the vote. Born in Thetford in August 1985 and a lifelong resident, schooled at Charles Burrell Humanities School and City College Norwich, he is rooted in the constituency, and is openly gay, having been Thetford's first openly gay Mayor.

His distinctive asset is not just council service but a local media business. He runs About Thetford, a monthly magazine delivered to 13,000 homes and working with more than 80 small businesses each month, giving him direct contact with households and enterprises across the area that committee work cannot replicate. He was also the driving force behind the creation of the Charles Burrell Centre, a community facility in Thetford.

He has served on three tiers of local government at once: Thetford Town Council from 2008, when he was elected at 22, Breckland District Council from 2011, and Norfolk County Council from 2013. He was Mayor of Thetford in 2016/17, believed to be the youngest in the town's 800 year history, and remains a town councillor; he is also an elected officer of the Labour Rural Research Group. He sits on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, in a constituency, covering Thetford, Downham Market and Swaffham, that Electoral Calculus rates "Strong Right" with heavy Brexit support.