A Brexiteer wants to leave but retain all the benefits of remaining... again

The Brexiteers were always very clear as they campaigned for Britain to wrench itself away from the European Union: don’t worry, we’ll be leaving, but we’ll retain every single benefit of membership.

That, of course, didn’t turn out very well at all, but it hasn’t stopped one Tory-turned-Reform MP and true Brexit believer from wanting to repeat the playbook. Andrew Rosindell, who ditched the Conservatives for Nigel Farage’s mob earlier this year, is fuming that it means his former party says it means he can no longer use their offices!

Rosindell, the oddball MP for Romford, is suing his old party over claims that he cannot access a personal “panic room” after the local Conservative association locked him out of its building. He previously had exclusive use of a private room at the Romford Conservative Association’s Margaret Thatcher House as a constituency office, but was denied access when he defected on what might seem like the entirely reasonable excuse he wasn’t a member anymore.

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Last week the association changed the locks and blocked Rosindell from entering the building but Rosindell is now suing to persuade a judge to order that he be allowed to return. Among his series of complaints, Rosindell has claimed concern about “his personal safety” as he has been blocked from accessing his “panic room”. After he defected to Reform, the MP was told his status as a Conservative MP was an “implicit condition” of any right to the office.

The case inexplicably reached the High Court on Tuesday for an emergency injunction application, but a judge adjourned the hearing after being told that the Conservative association had been given only 90 minutes’ notice by Rosindell’s team.

Meanwhile, one of the key reasons behind Rosindell’s defection was Farage’s promise, if elected, to hold a referendum on Romford leaving London and becoming part of Essex once more – Rosindell’s signature policy, despite the fact that it has been part of the capital since before the MP was born.

If he’s successful and does split from London, though, can we expect an apoplectic Rosindell to implode once he loses his Oyster card and his vote in mayoral elections?