One of the most right-wing Conservative Members of Parliament has defected to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the staunch Thatcherite citing both Labour and the Tories’ betrayal of British interests by giving away sovereign and very highly strategic territory in the Indian Ocean for his decision.
Romford Member of Parliament and, until Sunday night the Conservative Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs Andrew Rosindell has joined Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, becoming the party’s seventh MP. Stating “the time has come to put country before party”, Rosindell wrote of the failures of the Tories both in government and now in opposition.
While every defection is a blow to the Conservatives, Rosindell is one of a handful of a dwindling number of Parliamentarians who kept values of the old pre-Cameron Conservative Party alive and has long been a standard-bearer of the staunchly patriotic right within the Tory coalition. He was one of the Brexit-hardcore ‘Spartans’ in the Conservatives, vocally anti-lockdown, and his constituency headquarters, renamed ‘Margaret Thatcher House’ is perpetually decked out in patriotic bunting and flags, and is well known on the British right-wing scene.
Rosindell stated as he announced his resignation from the Conservatives’ that the party’s failure to defend British sovereignty was the “clear red line” that pushed him away. Speaking of the process to hand over the British Indian Ocean Territory, which contains a major UK-U.S. air and naval base which is critical for power projection in Asia which was started off by the Conservatives while in power and turbo-charged by Labour, Rosindell said: ”
Both the government and the opposition have been complicit in the surrender of this sovereign British territory to a foreign power. 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.
… 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 Conservatives are “unwilling to take meaningful accountability for the poor decisions made over so many issues” and Farage’s Reform is “now the only political movement that is genuinely willing to fight for the best interests of the United Kingdom”.
Nigel Farage himself reflected on the announcement that “Andrew is a great patriot. The Tory lies and hypocrisy over the Chagos Islands betrayal tipped him over the edge” and that the new-hire will be a “great addition” to the coming nationwide local elections campaign for May.
Rosindell is the second major defection from the Tories to Reform in a week, following Robert Jenrick who joined Farage’s faction on Friday. The party has promised another defection to be announced on Tuesday, this time from the Labour party, and yet more are to follow, Jenrick said.
The Daily Telegraph cites his remarks to GB News in response to Rosindell’s move, telling the broadcaster:
Firstly, I’m absolutely delighted that Andrew has chosen to do this. Your viewers may know him – great constituency MP, true patriot, superb addition to the Reform team.
If there are other Conservative MPs who share the values and principles of Reform, who want to turn the country around, fix it, then I’m sure Nigel would welcome them into the party. But he has said, and he’s absolutely right to do, that this is going to have to happen quickly. After the May elections then the door closes and Reform moves on. It can’t be that people make up their mind or are Johnny-come-latelys to this.
So it’s make-your-mind-up time now for people who share the values and principles of Reform, and I suspect more will choose to follow in Andrew’s path.
As with previous defections, Conservative insiders have moved to profess they are glad to be rid of their former colleagues. Typical rhetoric includes that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is performing a “spring cleaning” for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch by taking all the Parliamentarians they — so it is implied — wanted to be rid of anyway.
Underlining that British politics is undergoing a realignment and that one potential outcome of this is the Conservative party aligning itself with the Liberal Democrats is “centrist dad” anti-Brexit Conservative David Gauke, who expressed that these defections are an “opportunity”. The party can now give up on chasing right-wing votes and tack to the centre, he wrote, given there is nobody left in the party now to pull it rightwards.
This may be good for the Conservatives — given they no longer have to play pretend about who they are to the electorate any more, and can stop making promises they never intend to keep — and for Farage too, being left as the only party of the British right.
