Andrew Rosindell quits Tories and defects to Reform UK

Andrew Rosindell has resigned from the Conservative Party and defected to Reform UK.

The former shadow minister and MP for Romford said the Tories were "irreparably bound to the mistakes of previous governments" and not willing to take "meaningful accountability" for poor decisions.

He said he had spoken to Nigel Farage on Sunday evening before agreeing to join his party. The Reform UK leader called him "a great patriot" who "will be a great addition to our team".

A Conservative source said Rosindell's departure was a prime example of Farage doing the "spring cleaning" of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, and Reform was "welcome" to him.

Rosindell's move comes after Robert Jenrick joined Reform on Thursday, hours after being sacked from the shadow cabinet by Badenoch, who had accused him of plotting to defect.

The 59-year-old, who was a shadow foreign minister before his resignation, said in a statement on X that the "views and concerns of constituents such as mine in Romford have been consistently ignored for far too long".

"Our country has endured a generation of managed decline," he added. "Radical action is now required to reverse the damaging decisions of the past and to forge a new course for Britain."

Rosindell becomes Reform's seventh MP and the third sitting Conservative MP to join the party, following Danny Kruger and Jenrick.

This week's defections mean that - putting aside independent MPs, who do not vote in a block - Reform UK now has the joint fifth biggest party grouping in the Commons, alongside Sinn Fein which does not send any of its seven MPs to Westminster.

It is two MPs behind the fourth biggest party, the SNP.

About 20 former Tory MPs have switched their allegiance to Reform UK, including former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who did so a week ago.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Jenrick said it was "great news" Rosindell had joined Reform adding: "If there are other members of Parliament who are in the same situation, then I'm sure Nigel [Farage] and the party would welcome them in.

"But he has said very clearly, that you need to make up your mind quickly because Reform is growing fast."

Shadow Welsh Secretary Mims Davies told BBC Radio 4's Westminster Hour that Conservative MPs defecting to Reform were "self-serving and completely wrong".

"I do find this very confusing that these people who are saying they want to put things right, want to be right-wing, but ultimately there's a lot in Reform which is very left-wing and obviously populist," she said.

"I really don't think that arguing that Britain is failing helps people. People want to know, yes things are wrong but the people they've elected are willing to roll up their sleeves and get themselves up to what needs to be fixing rather than looking self-serving."

Rosindell has held the Romford seat in east London since 2001, although his majority was cut from 17,893 to just 1,463 at the last general election.

After switching to Reform, he cited the Labour government's decision to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and the "failure of the Conservative Party both when in government and more recently in opposition to actively hold the government to account on the issue" as among the reasons for his defection.

Negotiations to transfer sovereignty of the islands began under the Conservatives in late 2022. However, under Kemi Badenoch, the Tories have criticised the handover deal struck by the Starmer government last year.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Rosindell described the Chagos handover as "one of the reasons" for his defection, whilst also saying his old party was "not radical enough" to offer answers to challenges facing Britain.

Also speaking to reporters, Farage insisted his party would not become a "lifeboat" for Conservative MPs, or "Tory Party 2.0".

The Reform leader has said his party would not accept further defections after elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, and a series of local elections in England, due on 7 May.

A Conservative source said Rosindell had been "threatening to defect for months, denying it was happening as recently as Saturday".

They added: "We're not going to be distracted from holding this disastrous Labour government to account."

TheLabour Party chair Anna Turley said: "The stench of a failed and dying Tory Party now engulfs Reform.

"Nigel Farage is now unconditionally trying to rehabilitate their disastrous record," she added. "The public won't be fooled: the Tories failed Britain and Reform want to do it all over again."

A Liberal Democrat source said the defection was "a change of rosette for a career politician worried about getting a P45", adding: "The public are fed up hearing about how Britain is broken from the very same people who broke it."

Jenrick told a news conference where he announced his defection to Reform that the Tories "broke" the country and had "betrayed its voters", with the UK now "in decline".

He later told the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg that the country needed a "new and exciting" leader "who hasn't been part of that failed consensus".

Badenoch called it a "good day" for the Conservatives and said Jenrick was "now Nigel Farage's problem".

She wrote in the Telegraph that Reform was destined to fail as it welcomed "toxic people" who "destroy organisations".

"A movement built on grievance and serial disloyalty is doomed to fail, and they will be at each other's throats soon enough," she said.

Correction - an earlier, breaking news version of this story incorrectly stated that Rosindell was the seventh Conservative MP to defect to Reform UK. He is actually the third sitting Conservative to switch allegiance, and takes the number of Reform UK MPs to seven.

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