Theresa Villiers is sad to leave the role after the election defeat

The former Chipping Barnet MP represented the constituency for 19 years before losing out to Labour’s Dan Tomlinson last week.

The former MP for Chipping Barnet said she was “sad to leave this role” following her general election defeat last week.

Theresa Villiers, who had held the seat since 2005, lost by 2,914 votes to Labour’s Dan Tomlinson, who is the first Labor candidate to win the constituency since it was created in 1974.

In a statement this week, Villiers said: “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve the people of Chipping Barnet as a Member of Parliament. Barnet is a special place and I’ve always fought to keep it that way.”

She added: “I congratulate Dan Tomlinson on becoming the new MP and wish him well in the future.”

Villiers’ statement also referred to a number of issues that have arisen in her campaign for the seat. She said: “While I am sad to leave this role which I have undertaken for nearly two decades, I do so knowing that I have worked as hard as I could on the issues that matter to us here in Barnet, such as more GP appointments, more apprenticeships, more money for schools, better NHS facilities, more policing, saving our local police station, fighting over-development and opposing Ulez expansion.”

During her time as an MP, Villiers served as a cabinet minister under both David Cameron and Boris Johnson, including nearly four years as secretary of state for Northern Ireland. Before becoming an MP, she was a member of the European Parliament between 1999 and 2005.

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