'I'm not giving up!' Truss teases return to Parliament as ex-PM inspired by 'fight of our lifetimes'

Truss, who remains the most unpopular politician in the UK, said: "I've only been out of Parliament for a few months, so I am currently thinking about what to do.

"What is certainly true is that I am not going to give up on this fight.

"I think this is the fight of our lifetimes, saving Western civilisation, and that is what I am focused on."

When asked if she missed the House of Commons, Truss added: "I do enjoy politics, I do enjoy debate. I think Parliament has become a shadow of its former self because so much power has been taken away from Parliament.

"There's far too much show-boating and emoting in Parliament rather than serious debate about what our country needs. That was what was frustrating me about Parliament."

Truss, who lost her seat on July 4 as Labour overturned her 26,195 vote majority to win by 630 ballots, also appeared to blame Reform UK for losing her seat.

Reform UK's Toby McKenzie received 9,958 votes, narrowly behind Truss' 11,217 haul.

Speaking about the threat from Reform UK, Truss said: "I lost my seat largely due to Reform. Reform took a lot of my vote in South West Norfolk and I was frankly in quite a difficult position because I was running under a very orthodox Conservative Party while being an unorthodox Conservative myself.

"That’s what happened to us in many similar seats. Because Reform did so well, Conservatives lost and Labour got in. I don’t believe the people of South West Norfolk actually consciously wanted a Labour MP ... They didn’t vote Labour because they were enthusiastic about the Labour Party, they voted Labour because they were fed up that we hadn’t delivered."

Despite Truss's teasing comments, the former Prime Minister remains the most unpopular politician in the UK after introducing a tranche of unfunded tax cuts worth £45billion.

Truss' approval rating with all UK adults stands at -45 per cent, including -26 per cent among 2024 Conservative voters.

The figure is significantly lower than the -25 per cent for Sunak and -18 per cent for Farage.

Truss became just the fourth former Prime Minister to lose her seat after leaving Downing Street, following in the footsteps of Arthur Balfour, Herbert Asquith and Ramsay MacDonald.

However, after a two-year break, Asquith returned to the House of Commons after going on a chicken run from East Fife to Paisley.

The former Prime Minister has become a stick to beat the Tory Party with after she was forced to resign just weeks into the role.

Labour and Liberal Democrats pounced on her tumultuous premiership as support plummeted for the Conservative Party.

Despite criticisms from Labour, Truss defiantly warned Chancellor Rachel Reeves against following the "Treasury orthodoxy".

She said: "There was a real lack of interest amongst policymakers, politicians and the media in reporting what actually happened in 2022. I think that’s bad for the country and I think it’s fundamentally dishonest.

"But what happened was successive Conservative governments went along with the economic orthodoxy, loose monetary policy, giving control to the Bank of England, accepting the judgments of the OBR.

"They essentially outsourced economic policy so it wasn’t being decided by the Chancellor ... I explicitly, back in 2022, had a mandate to take that on.

"What I found was those people and institutions were very powerful, they sought to undermine me and at the same time, people in the Conservative Party wanted to undermine me. But they are fundamentally wrong."