Senior Tory MP defects to Reform

A Tory senior MP has followed Robert Jenrick and defected to Reform UK, in protest at the Conservatives’ handling of the Chagos Islands deal.

Andrew Rosindell, the MP for Romford and former shadow minister for foreign affairs, announced on Sunday night that he had been forced to “put country before party”.

He said he now believed the Conservative Party was “irreparably bound to the mistakes of previous governments” and was “unwilling to take meaningful accountability” for its record in office.

Mr Rosindell’s defection comes days after Mr Jenrick joined Reform after being sacked by Kemi Badenoch.

It raises the prospect that more MPs on the Conservative Right could defect to Reform and will come as a severe blow to the Conservative leader.

Mr Farage has given Tory MPs who want to join his party a deadline of the May 7 local elections.

On Sunday night, the Reform leader described Mr Rosindell as a “great patriot” who had been tipped “over the edge” by “Tory lies and hypocrisy over the Chagos Islands”.

Mr Rosindell is the fourth former Tory MP to defect to Reform after Lee Anderson, Danny Kruger and Mr Jenrick.

Other high profile defectors include Nadhim Zahawi, the former chancellor, Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, and Sir Jake Berry, the former party chairman.

Mr Rosindell was one of the Conservatives’ most Right-wing MPs and backed Mr Jenrick for the leadership.

A Conservative Party source said Mr Rosindell had threatened to defect for months but denied he was doing so until as recently as Saturday.

They said it was another example of Nigel Farage doing Mrs Badenoch’s “spring cleaning”, referring to her comments after Mr Jenrick’s defection.

“The Conservative Party supported Rosindell throughout his many troubles, and he responded by stabbing his friends, colleagues and activists in the back. Reform are welcome to him,” the source said.

In October, Mr Rosindell said in an interview with GB News that he was willing to serve with Mr Farage in a coalition government and acknowledged his Romford constituency would “almost certainly” be won by Reform at the next election.

Mr Rosindell said he was defecting because the Tories had failed to “hold the Government to account” over its handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.

In a statement on X, he wrote: “This evening, with sorrow, I have decided to resign from my position as an Opposition shadow minister and as a member of the Conservative and Unionist Party.

“Since joining the Conservative Party at the age of 14, I have been a loyal and committed supporter of the principles advocated by Margaret Thatcher that have always underpinned my own political beliefs.”

He continued: “However, the time has come to put country before party. 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 of Chagossian self-determination and the defence of British sovereignty, represents a clear red line for me.”

Mr Rosindell said his insistence that the self-determination of the Chagossian people was “sacrosanct” had “fallen on deaf ears”, with both Labour and Tories “complicit in the surrender of this sovereign British territory”.

He added: “This was made abundantly clear by the failure of Conservative peers to vote down the British Indian Ocean Territory Bill at third reading earlier this month, following direction from the top of the party.

“Sadly, I now believe that the Conservative Party is irreparably bound to the mistakes of previous governments and unwilling to take meaningful accountability for the poor decisions made over so many issues.

“Moreover, the views and concerns of constituents such as mine in Romford have been consistently ignored for far too long.”

Chagos negotiations

The Tories have been highly critical of the Chagos deal since the election but opened negotiations over the islands’ future while in government.

The Tories led a rare rebuke of the deal in the House of Lords last week by passing a “motion of regret” about the security risks of handing over the islands and the costs to the British taxpayer.

But Reform said the motion meant “very little in the grand scheme of things”, provoking a war of words with the Conservatives.

Lord True, the Tory leader in the House of Lords, accused Mr Farage of turning on parliamentary colleagues who were fighting on the same side over the future of the islands.

Mr Jenrick welcomed his new colleague, hailing him as “a great champion of Romford, a true patriot and now Reform MP”.

Anna Turley, the Labour Party chair, said: “The stench of a failed and dying Tory party now engulfs Reform.

“The Conservatives left public services on their knees, and Nigel Farage is now unconditionally trying to rehabilitate their disastrous record.

“The public won’t be fooled: the Tories failed Britain and Reform want to do it all over again.”

A Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “It’s a change of rosette for a career politician worried about getting a P45.

“The public are fed up hearing about how Britain is broken from the very same people who broke it.”