British far-right politician Nigel Farage has won the partial election in his constituency, Clacton-On-Sea (in southeast England), with 63%, after resigning due to corruption investigations opened against him in Parliament. His main rival was the so-called Count Binface, who received more than a quarter of the support among voters. Farage framed the election as a challenge to the establishment that the other parties rejected, so he only faced satirical or independent candidates to regain a seat he already held before resigning. The boycott by the main parties had left the contest decided weeks ago.
If the campaign was bizarre, the outcome of the vote has been marked by controversy, after Farage and most of his party members did not attend the traditional reading of results. Reform UK justified their absence due to the risk to their leader’s safety, but the Essex Police (the county where Clacton-On-Sea is located) denied having recommended any candidate not to attend the count. “We have a proportionate and robust police operation to ensure the safety of all participants in the count,” they said in a statement.
Farage is the first absent candidate in a results declaration for the British Parliament since IRA activist Bobby Sands in 1981, who was on a hunger strike in prison. His party also canceled the victory speech that the winner of this Thursday had planned this morning in Clacton-On-Sea, although no reasons were given. At a party with supporters during the early hours, while the count was ongoing, Farage said the police had warned him of “an organized campaign to disrupt and degrade the result.”
“I will in no way get on a stage, having won an overwhelming victory, and let some nobodies disrespect and humiliate me,” declared the far-right politician. In Clacton-On-Sea, Farage inspires almost devotion, but he is a divisive figure in British politics, and describes himself as “the politician who has received the most death threats in 20 years.”
His popularity has also been undermined by corruption allegations, which have already created cracks in Reform UK’s chances of establishing itself as a credible alternative to the traditional British two-party system. A More In Common poll published the day before Thursday’s vote revealed that if the contest were transferred to the national scene, Count Binface would have won with 37%, compared to 32% for the Reform UK leader.
The 63% obtained by the Reform UK candidate this Thursday, with a turnout of just over 44%, exceeds by 17 points his result from two years ago, when he had won the seat. The result, however, falls significantly short of what polls had anticipated, which gave him more than 70%.
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Investigation
Farage hastened the partial election in response to controversy over opaque donations and controversial friendships. A record 34 candidates ran, despite the absence of the main parties, which considered the maneuver a “farce.” The Reform UK leader’s strategy calculated that, once he obtained the voters’ endorsement, the ongoing investigation into an undeclared sum, equivalent to about 5.7 million euros, would be nullified. However, with his resignation from his seat as MP, the process was only suspended and will be resumed as soon as he takes office again at the parliamentary session restart in September.
If the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, concludes that he violated the ethical code, he could impose a minimum suspension of 10 days, which would automatically open the possibility of leaving the seat vacant and calling a new vote, if 10% of the voters support it. The Reform UK leader could run, but in this scenario the main parties would indeed participate, complicating the re-election of an MP who would have just been censured for breaking the rules.
Reform UK, a personalist and leader-cult party, has suffered significant wear this summer, losing the poll leadership it had enjoyed for months. The accusations against Farage and the new momentum given to the Labour Party by the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, have taken a toll on the popularity of a party that frequently denounces a system conspiracy to prevent its leader’s rise to Number 10 Downing Street. Farage himself described Count Binface, the alter ego of comedian Jon Harvey, as “the system’s candidate.”
With the campaign in Clacton-On-Sea concluded, the party now hopes to regain ground, taking advantage of the potential end of the grace period enjoyed by Burnham since his appointment just four weeks ago. The first obstacles faced by the new premier, the controversy over the early release of thousands of prisoners to deal with prison system overcrowding, and the relentless arrival of unregulated migration across the English Channel, play into Reform UK’s reference terrain, but the attention given to Thursday’s partial election, for which Farage said he campaigned by knocking on “tens of thousands of doors” in his constituency, has prevented capitalizing on the controversy.
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