{"id":13540,"date":"2026-01-18T21:27:48","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13540"},"modified":"2026-01-18T21:27:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T21:27:48","slug":"andrew-rosindell-quits-tories-and-defects-to-reform-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13540","title":{"rendered":"Andrew Rosindell quits Tories and defects to Reform UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Andrew Rosindell has resigned from the Conservative Party and defected to Reform UK.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">The former shadow minister and MP for Romford said the Tories were &#8220;irreparably bound to the mistakes of previous governments&#8221; and not willing to take &#8220;meaningful accountability&#8221; for poor decisions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He said he had spoken to Nigel Farage on Sunday evening before agreeing to join his party. The Reform UK leader called him &#8220;a great patriot&#8221; who &#8220;will be a great addition to our team&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Rosindell&#8217;s move comes after Robert Jenrick joined Reform on Thursday, hours after being sacked from the shadow cabinet by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who had accused him of plotting to defect.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">In a statement on X, Rosindell said the &#8220;views and concerns of constituents such as mine in Romford have been consistently ignored for far too long&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Our country has endured a generation of managed decline,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Radical action is now required to reverse the damaging decisions of the past and to forge a new course for Britain.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Rosindell said he had joined the Conservative Party when he was 14, and he was shadow minister for foreign affairs before his resignation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He cited the Labour government&#8217;s <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c5y2x49228lo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"noopener\">decision to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius<\/a> and the &#8220;failure of the Conservative Party both when in government and more recently in opposition to actively hold the government to account on the issue&#8221; as part of the reason for his defection.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Both the government and the opposition have been complicit in the surrender of this sovereign British territory to a foreign power,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Farage said: &#8220;The Tories&#8217; lies and hypocrisy over the Chagos Islands betrayal has tipped him over the edge, and we are delighted to welcome him to our ranks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Responding to the defection, Labour party chair Anna Turley said: &#8220;The stench of a failed and dying Tory Party now engulfs Reform&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">&#8220;Nigel Farage is now unconditionally trying to rehabilitate their disastrous record,&#8221; she added. &#8220;The public won&#8217;t be fooled: the Tories failed Britain and Reform want to do it all over again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Rosindell becomes Reform&#8217;s seventh MP and the third sitting Conservative MP to join the party, following Danny Kruger and Jenrick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">About 20 former Tory MPs have switched to Reform UK, including former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi last week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">At a <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cwyrpdy42n1o\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 iCaRzc\" rel=\"noopener\">press conference announcing his defection to Reform<\/a>, Jenrick said the Tories &#8220;broke&#8221; the country and had &#8220;betrayed its voters&#8221; with the UK &#8220;in decline&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">He later told the BBC&#8217;s Laura Kuenssberg that the country needed a &#8220;new and exciting&#8221; leader &#8220;who hasn&#8217;t been part of that failed consensus&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-9a00e533-0 eZyhnA\">Badenoch said it was a &#8220;good day&#8221; for the Conservatives and that Jenrick was &#8220;now Nigel Farage&#8217;s problem&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>#Andrew #Rosindell #quits #Tories #defects #Reform<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andrew Rosindell has resigned &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[242],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}