Reform UK has gained its seventh MP after Andrew Rosindell switched sides on Sunday night. The longtime Member for Romford was unveiled after a rapid series of talks earlier today. In a statement Nigel Farage said that ‘Andrew is a great patriot. The Tories’ lies and hypocrisy over the Chagos Islands betrayal has tipped him over the edge, and we are delighted to welcome him to our ranks.’ Rosindell is a longtime champion of the British Overseas Territories, an ardent Brexiteer and – at the time of his defection– a serving member of Priti Patel’s shadow foreign affairs team.
Two factors are understood to be responsible for his defection. The first is the aforementioned Chagos deal, the handling of which by the Tory front bench had come to increasingly exasperate Rosindell. On Monday, Tory peers did not block the Diego Garcia military base deal in the Upper House out of respect for convention – despite, according to some accounts, having the numbers to do so. Rosindell is understood to have opposed this decision and wanted to back Al Pinkerton’s amendment for the Chagossians to have a referendum on the agreement.
Then, on Thursday, Robert Jenrick defected to Reform UK – having been expelled from the Conservative party and shadow cabinet just hours earlier. Rosindell and Jenrick were close, with the former backing the latter’s leadership campaign in 2024. The loss of the former Shadow Justice Secretary is believed to have been a major part in crystallising Rosindell’s thinking, amid mounting dismay at the direction of the Conservative party. Within minutes of Rosindell’s defection being announced, Jenrick was one of the first to welcome him to Reform UK.
He is also the fourth serving Tory frontbencher to quit the Tories after Jenrick, Danny Kruger and Malcolm Offord. He may lack the profile of others, but it is a pointed rejoinder to Kemi Badenoch’s claim barely 48 hours ago that Jenrick’s exit would not lead to an exodus out of the Tory party. ‘It begins’, declared one senior Reform aide in reaction to the news; ‘It’s all thanks to Kemi Badenoch’s leadership,’ crowed another. With Nigel Farage keen to talk up his 7 May ‘transfer day deadline’, he is hoping that more onetime true blue Tories follow Rosindell’s example in the coming weeks.
For 25 years, Rosindell has been a stalwart figure on the right of the Tory party and will likely be the last Monday Club member ever to sit for the Conservatives. A flag-waving Thatcherite, he has until recently, always insisted to friends that he would not cross to Reform. But despite being an assiduous constituency MP, he has nevertheless seen, in recent months a huge upsurge in Reform activity in Essex. Variations of the ‘I like you, but I’m voting for Nigel’ conversation have been had by him and his Tory team over the past 18 months on the doorstep and at street stalls. His defection is likely to be a portent of what is to come in the former Thatcherite heartland of Essex.
