I have often wondered if the British Conservative Party is actually a political organization or merely a long-form performance art piece dedicated to the concept of entropy. Just when you think the snake has finished eating its own tail, it manages to dislocate its jaw to swallow its own torso. The latest episode in this tragicomic farce involves Andrew Rosindell, the MP for Romford and a man whose blood type is likely pure marmalade, defects from the Tories to Reform UK. This comes mere days after Robert Jenrick, the former shadow justice minister and a man who wears a suit like he’s trying to sell you a monorail, did the exact same thing.

Let’s be entirely clear about what is happening here. This isn’t a realignment of ideological principles. It isn’t a brave stand for the soul of a nation. It is the political equivalent of moving from a burning building into a dumpster fire because the dumpster fire promised lower taxes on heat.

I find it difficult to muster the energy to be surprised, yet the sheer predictability of it all is precisely what makes it so nauseating. Rosindell has always been a caricature of a specific type of Toryism—the type that believes the solution to a collapsing healthcare system and a stagnant economy is simply to play the national anthem louder and more frequently. He is a man who treats the Union Jack not as a flag, but as a religious talisman capable of warding off the evils of modernity. For him to stay in the modern Conservative Party—a hollowed-out husk that stands for absolutely nothing other than its own survival—must have felt like a betrayal of his vintage worldview. So, naturally, he has decamped to Reform UK, a political entity that functions less like a party and more like a nostalgia subscription service for people who think the 1950s were a documentary.

The timing, of course, is exquisite. Robert Jenrick, a man whose ambition is visible from space, jumped ship just days prior. When you have Jenrick, the opportunistic careerist, and Rosindell, the ideological mascot, both fleeing in the same week, you aren't looking at a leak. You are looking at the Titanic snapping in half while the band argues over royalties. The Conservative Party is bleeding out, and the sharks circling the water are wearing teal rosettes. But let’s not delude ourselves into thinking Reform UK offers a solution. To believe that Nigel Farage’s private limited company offers a viable alternative to the Tory collapse requires a level of cognitive dissonance that usually requires heavy medication.

From where I sit, watching this spectacle with a glass of something strong and a heart full of disdain, the hilarity lies in the futility of it all. The British public is being asked to choose between the people who broke the country (the Tories), the people who want to break it faster and louder (Reform), and the people currently in charge (Labour) who seem terrified to touch anything lest it shatter. Rosindell’s defection is treated by the media as a seismic shift, a thunderclap in Westminster. In reality, it is the sound of a deckchair sliding across the deck of a ship that hit the iceberg ten years ago.

What truly grinds my gears—if I had any gears left that weren't stripped by years of observing human stupidity—is the pretense that these individuals are “public servants.” If Rosindell or Jenrick truly cared about the constituency of Romford or the concept of Justice, they would perhaps focus on legislation, or governance, or fixing the potholes that likely swallow small cars in their districts. Instead, they engage in this tribal dance of badges. They swap the Blue team jersey for the Turquoise team jersey, assuming the electorate is stupid enough to treat this as a meaningful evolution. The tragedy, of course, is that the electorate probably is.

We are witnessing the end stage of a political organism. The Conservative Party, the oldest and most successful election-winning machine in history, is being dismantled by the very egos it nurtured. They tolerated the populists, they courted the reactionaries, and they fed the beast of Euro-skepticism until it grew large enough to eat them whole. Now, men like Rosindell look at the wreckage they helped create and decide that the problem is the party isn't "true" enough. It is a level of narcissism that would make a Greek god blush.

So, goodbye, Andrew Rosindell, MP for the Past. Enjoy your new home in Reform UK. I am sure you and Robert Jenrick will have stimulating conversations about how to save Britain by shouting at clouds. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left in the real world, where the cost of living is high, the infrastructure is crumbling, and the politicians are too busy playing musical chairs to notice the music stopped playing years ago. I hate them all, and somehow, they make it so incredibly easy.