News Beat
Andrew Rosindell: Rightwing Tory MP who admired South American dictator defects to Nigel Farage’s Reform
Rightwing Conservative MP and shadow foreign minister Andrew Rosindell has followed Robert Jenrick and defected to Reform UK.
Mr Rosindell, who became a Tory MP in 2001, announced his decision to switch parties on Sunday evening, citing the Conservatives’ position over the Chagos Islands as his main reason for defecting.
But the Tory leadership have said that Nigel Farage is “welcome” to an MP who has been in parliament for 25 years and remained a backbencher for almost all that time.
The Romford MP was one of the most rightwing on the Tory benches, having previously opposed gay marriage, taken an extreme pro-Brexit stance and expressed “huge admiration” for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. He was also a member of the now disbanded Monday Club, an anti-immigration political pressure group.
Previously, the MP was involved in the 2009 expenses scandal after he claimed more than £125,000 in second home expenses for a flat in London while designating his childhood home 17 miles away – where his mother lived – as his main address.
In 2024 the police dropped a rape and sexual assault investigation against Mr Rosindell, saying the evidence threshold for criminal prosecution had not been met and no further action would be taken.
Responding to the news of his defection, a senior Tory source told The Independent: “Rosindell had been threatening to defect for months, denying it was happening as recently as Saturday. Kemi said Farage was doing her spring cleaning, and this is another prime example.
“The Conservative Party supported Rosindell throughout his many troubles, and he’s responded by stabbing his friends, colleagues and activists in the back. Reform are welcome to him. We’re not going to be distracted from holding this disastrous Labour government to account.”
Another source close to the leadership added: “We had a duty of care to a very troubled man but now he is Nigel’s problem.”
Mr Rosindell, speaking about his decision to defect, argued that Reform UK is now “the only political movement that is genuinely willing to fight for the best interests of the United Kingdom”.
He said a “clear red line” for him was “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”.
The Romford MP also claimed the Tories were “irreparably bound to the mistakes of previous governments and unwilling to take meaningful accountability for the poor decisions” they made.
He added: “The views and concerns of the majority of the British people must no longer be sidelined. Our country has endured a generation of managed decline.
“Radical action is now required to reverse the damaging decisions of the past and to forge a new course for Britain – one that firmly places the interests of the British people first.”
The latest Tory defection comes after Mr Farage insisted over the weekend that Reform was “not a rescue charity for every panicky Tory MP”. He warned that any potential defectors would have to admit publicly that the previous Conservative government “broke the country”.
Mr Rosindell was first elected in 2001 but it is understood he had asked friends as early as last autumn whether it was time to defect to Reform.
One sticking point was understood to be the fate of “Margaret Thatcher House”, his headquarters in Romford officially opened by Baroness Thatcher whose memory Mr Rosindell was devoted to.
His decision comes just four days after Mr Jenrick defected to Reform UK following his dramatic sacking from the Conservative front bench and kicked out of the Tory party.
Launching an extraordinary attack on his former colleagues at a press conference in Westminster, the former shadow justice secretary said the party had “betrayed its voters and members” and was “in denial – or being dishonest” about its record.
He said he was joining Reform UK because the Conservatives under Kemi Badenoch had failed to change after their 2024 election wipeout, arguing that the country now needs Nigel Farage.
In the days after Mr Jenrick’s defection, the Conservatives placed 11 of their MPs on a defection watch list amid fears more could follow him to Reform UK – a list which featured Mr Rosindell.
But Mr Rosindell had been popular in the Tory party with a number of future MPs and special advisers getting their first job with them. He had been one of just two Tory gains against Tony Blair in 2001 and was known as “Mr Romford” because of his strong connections with the Essex town he grew up in and represented.
Figures inside the party are now convinced that former home secretary Suella Braverman could be next to jump ship to Reform.
In the wake of Mr Jenrick’s defection, Ms Badenoch had attempted to play down talk of further MPs quitting the party, insisting that “pretty much all of Rob’s former supporters have come to me and said sorry”.
But responding to Mr Rosindell’s defection, Labour Party chair Anna Turley 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”, she said.
