Gillian Keegan has been ousted from a Tory stronghold which has been held by the party for 100 years. The former Chichester MP lost the seat to Liberal Democrat Jess Brown-Fuller. Ms Brown-Fuller won with 25,540 votes compared to Ms Keegan's 13,368.
The constituency, which is one of the UK’s oldest, has long been a Conservative stronghold and has been held by the party continuously since 1924. The seat was a key target of the Lib Dems alongside Lewes and Eastbourne. Follow our live coverage of the General Election here The party’s leader Sir Ed Davey paid a visit to the area on the campaign trail to announce plans to abolish Ofwat and introduce a new water regulator to tackle the sewage crisis.
While at Birdham Pool Marina, he met Lib Dem parliamentary candidate Jess Brown-Fuller, who graduated from Chichester University and has lived in the area since the 1990s. Ms Keegan, who served as education secretary, won the seat in 2017 with 60 per cent of the vote. In 2019, she kept her seat with 57.
8 per cent of the vote. When appointed Education Secretary by Rishi Sunak in 2022, Ms Keegan was the fifth person to hold the role in under four months and the sixth since the 2019 general election . Less than a year into the role she was fighting a major crisis after ordering more than 100 schools to make closures because of concerns that a crumbling aerated concrete could collapse.
She faced questions about why more than 100 schools and colleges were ordered to make closures just d.
