'A clear agenda'

How teenager revealed Tory MP's defection to Reform UK

- Ben Quinn

The Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell had been long tipped as a potential Reform recruit before his defection last weekend took Westminster by surprise.

Yet as he and Nigel Farage basked in the spotlight outside parliament on Monday, more than 200 miles away in the town of Whitby a 15-year-old schoolboy was also savouring the moment.

Incredibly - or at least to those unfamiliar with the rise of his burgeoning media enterprise - Charlie Simpson appeared to have scooped all other media by predicting the evening before the defection that the Essex MP would join Reform.

"EXCLUSIVE: MP Andrew Rosindell has reached an agreement to defect to Reform UK," Simpson tweeted on Saturday on X, prompting derision from other users of the platform and pressure from Rosindell’s office to take down the tweet.

But the following day, Rosindell who was a shadow Foreign Office minister under Kemi Badenoch, announced on X that he had quit the Conservative party "with sorrow" after 25 years and had decided to join Reform "following a conversation with Nigel Farage earlier in the evening".