Turnip Taliban bid to unseat 'failure' Truss as their MP

Former prime minister Liz Truss faces an attempt to oust her as a Norfolk MP by one of a group of dissident Tories known as the Turnip Taliban.

- SIMON WALTERS

Lawyer and ex-army officer James Bagge is planning to stand against Ms Truss in the forthcoming general election as an independent candidate. He yesterday announced a series of public meetings to win backing for his challenge, having already held several meetings to canvass support for his plan, in addition to a social media campaign.

If Mr Bagge defeated Ms Truss it would be one of the biggest election upsets of all time. He is among prominent Conservatives who resigned from the party in protest at her selection as its candidate for South West Norfolk in 2009 after complaints she was “foisted” on them by Tory HQ.

They argued she had no links to the area and accused party chiefs of failing to inform them she had had an affair with a married Tory MP. It led to Ms Truss’s critics in the traditional East Anglian agricultural constituency being labelled the Turnip Taliban.

Asked about the Turnip Taliban tag, Mr Bagge, 71, told The Independent: “It is not a label of choice. But a turnip has deeper roots than a lettuce.” The quip is a reference to a newspaper campaign in which Ms Truss’s premiership was supposedly outlasted by a lettuce.

Mr Bagge claims Ms Truss has “put personal ambition above the interests of local people” and been a “failure” as an MP. He and his older brother, seventh baronet Sir Jeremy Bagge, were among her most vocal critics in the 2009 deselection row.

Defeating Ms Truss will not be easy. She had a massive 26,195 majority at the 2019 election and was recently backed by her local party to stand again. Mr Bagge stressed he wants to canvass local opinion before making a final decision, pointedly stating “because that is what Ms Truss failed to do”.