Robert Jenrick has heaped praise on Andrew Rosindell after his defection to Reform UK, hailing the ex-Tory as a “true patriot”.

Speaking to GB News, the newly defected Reform UK MP encouraged more Conservatives to jump ship and said Nigel Farage would “welcome more” ahead of the May elections.

Andrew Rosindell became the second Tory MP in a week to defect to Reform, following Mr Jenrick’s dramatic defection on Thursday.

Announcing his defection, Mr Rosindell said he had decided to resign “with sorrow”, declaring “the time has come to put country before party”.

Reacting to the defection, Mr Jenrick told GB News: “Firstly, I’m absolutely delighted that Andrew has chosen to do this. Your viewers may know him, a great constituency MP and a very true patriot. He is a superb addition to the Reform team.

“Look, if there are other Conservative MPs who share the values and the principles of Reform, who want to turn the country around, fix it, then I’m sure Nigel would welcome them into the party.”

He added: “But he has said, and he’s absolutely right to do so, that this is going to have to happen quickly after the May elections, then the door closes and Reform moves on.

“So it’s make your mind up time now for people who share the values and the principles of Reform, and I suspect more will choose to follow in Andrew’s path.”

Asked by host Ellie Costello if he is “trustworthy” following his defection to Reform, Mr Jenrick said: “I heard that argument from Kemi Badenoch, she’s obviously lashing out as she didn’t like me very much, but the really important issue here is that to me, we’ve got to fix the country.

“I think Britain is broken right now. Kemi disagrees, she thinks everything’s all right and is going down the right track and we just have to muddle along.

“But I think the country is in a mess and that is what most of your viewers, I suspect, will be feeling this morning.”

He stressed: “Their wages aren’t going up, immigration is out of control, public services don’t seem to be working.

“You’ve got to have some real change in the country, and that is why I chose to break with the Conservative Party, which pained me because I’ve been a member of it for a very long time.

“But that’s the reason I chose to join Reform, because the Conservative Party hasn’t learnt its lessons.

“It’s still got exactly the same people at the top of it who made all those mistakes in the first place, and it’s not the party that we can believe in to actually fix the country and get it onto the right track.”

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Grilling Mr Jenrick further, Ellie argued: “Well, many would say you were part of the mistakes that were made, that you have since secretly plotted to defect to Reform UK before being caught out – you then attacked your former colleagues and we know on top of all of that that you have leadership ambitions. So are you trustworthy? Can Reform UK trust you?”

Mr Jenrick responded: “I think I’ve been the most honest really of anybody in recent years. I was the Conservative MP who resigned from Rishi Sunak’s cabinet because all the people around the cabinet table were willing to go along with an immigration policy that was a total disgrace, that was going to allow the small boats to continue for years and years and years.

“They were lying to the British public, saying that Rwanda was going to work when they knew in their hearts that it wasn’t.

“After the last general election, I was the one who said that the Conservative Party failed in Government, on immigration, the economy, on public services, and went out to make the case that the party had to change fundamentally if it was ever going to even try to win back the trust of the public.”

He told GB News: “I’m afraid I very slowly, over a period of time, came to the conclusion that I was naive, that the party was not going to change, that it was not capable of changing.

“And the worst thing of all, which is about honesty, was that the people at the top of the party were not willing to even appreciate, to concede that they were the ones who had made the mistakes.

“And if you can’t fess up to what you’ve done, then you are not going to be the people who can turn the country around and fix Britain.

“So that’s why I chose to make this very difficult decision. And as regards to Reform, I’m delighted I’ve done this.

“I’m part of a very exciting team now that wants to fix Britain under Nigel Farage, who is a strong leader.

“And in tough times you need to have somebody with real conviction running the party and the country and someone who’s been consistently right on the big issues, none more so than on immigration.”

As host Mark White highlighted that Mr Jenrick’s record within the Conservative Party is “not unblemished”, the Reform MP said: “I walked into the Home Office and it was a total bin fire.

“Suella Braverman and I were absolutely disgusted by what we found there, the record of the people who came before us. I mean, my goodness, absolutely terrible. We worked like crazy over the year that we were in that department. Small boats down by a third. No other ministers before or since managed to do that.

“We started to close those wretched hotels, the only people who managed to do that, and on the legal migration, I literally sat in Rishi Sunak’s office in Downing Street and said to the man, I will resign unless you bring into force the measures that are needed to get legal migration right down, and he reluctantly did that.”

He concluded: “And it’s because of that that we’re now seeing the changes come through. Was it enough? No, absolutely not. I’m the first to say that. That’s why, unlike others, I resigned from the cabinet, went on to the backbenches and started fighting and even voting against the Conservative Government.

“There was only 11 of us who bothered to vote against the Rwanda politics because we knew it wasn’t tough enough.

“Myself, Suella, we were part of it. So I’m afraid all the others in the Tory party, they sat on their hands. They were willing to see that happen, it was terrible.

“That’s why nobody should trust the Conservative Party now to be the ones who will actually fix the country.”