He triggered the by-election. He won it. And then Nigel Farage disappeared.
At 2.50am on Friday, votes were still being counted in Clacton, but with his victory assured, the Reform UK leader made an unprecedented intervention.
Taking to a private stage in front of a group of trusted allies 12 miles from the election hall, Farage announced he would not attend the declaration. This would make him the first parliamentary candidate to be declared victor in absentia since imprisoned Irish Republican Bobby Sands in 1981.
‘I’m damned if I’m going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory… and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies,’ Farage told the crowd, referencing the 33 outlandish candidates standing against him.
At 3.30am a spokesman for Reform UK clarified Farage had been advised not to attend by Essex Police due to an ‘organised campaign to disrupt and degrade the result’.
Bizarrely, Essex Police denied issuing such an instruction. An hour later journalists were informed a planned ‘major speech’ from Farage slated for 11am had been cancelled.
Where on earth was Nigel Farage, and why was he running from his own coronation?
Shortly after 6am, acting returning officer Ian Davidson took to the podium in the Clacton Leisure Centre. He confirmed that Farage had retained the seat he forfeited just one month ago with a sizeable 22,239 votes, reflecting 63 per cent of ballots cast. That’s more than double the number his closest rival, Count Binface, received (9,455).
Farage had retained the seat he forfeited just one month ago with a sizeable 22,239 votes, reflecting 63 per cent of ballots cast
Pictured: Members of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party arrive at Clacton Leisure Centre with leader Alan Howling Laud Hope centre
The pronouncement was met with near silence by the line of forlorn candidates. These included three members of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, an asylum seeker who believes global warming is a hoax, a 19-year-old TikTok influencer and of course Count Binface, who identifies as an ‘intergalactic space warrior’.
As the candidates filtered out of the election hall, one couldn’t help but feel that the Clacton jamboree had not only been one of the most unusual in a generation, but a humiliation for British democracy.
So how did we get here, what does it all mean and – crucially – could we find ourselves back in the Clacton Leisure Centre for yet another by-election before the year is out?
On July 7, Farage announced he was standing down as MP for Clacton, triggering a by-election in which he would also stand. He made the decision after objecting to an inquiry by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into whether he had broken rules by failing to declare a £5million gift from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne ahead of the 2024 General Election, as well as gifts from convicted fraudster and party aide George Cottrell.
Farage believed that winning the subsequent by-election – held at a cost of £350,000 – would clear his name of any wrongdoing.
In his eyes then, the victory wipes clean the slate of sleaze. But is that really the case? For a start, the parliamentary investigation into alleged financial impropriety resumed yesterday morning, but we’ll return to that later.
And did the other candidates really offer anything more than token competition? Remember, not one of the major political parties chose to stand a candidate in what Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called a ‘fake by-election’.
On polling day, 35,401 constituents cast their votes, reflecting a 44.37 per cent turnout. At 10pm on Thursday, polls closed and the first ballot box arrived to the count 15 minutes later. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party unspooled themselves from a people-carrier just after 11.45pm.
Count Binface being interviewed on Sky News inside Clacton Leisure Centre
Election workers begin the arduous task of sorting ballot papers at Clacton by-election
Taking to a private stage in front of a group of trusted allies 12 miles from the election hall, Farage announced he would not attend the declaration
Among the three candidates standing for the satirical group was 84-year-old leader Alan Hope who goes by the name Howling Laud Hope and who in 1999 was elected co-leader of the party alongside his pet cat.
After ‘Catmando’ was run over, Hope assumed sole leadership of the Loonies whose ‘manicfesto’ includes turning the Channel Tunnel into a car wash and painting grey squirrels red. He won 18 votes.
The other Loonies fared similarly poorly, with Nick The Incredible Flying Brick and Baron Von Thunderclap receiving 28 and 15 votes respectively.
The list of candidates was so long – the ballot paper itself was 3ft long – that many appeared to forget that the high-profile, hard-Right actor-turned-activist Laurence Fox was also standing.
Fox won 347 votes, placing him sixth of 34, though still well short of the 5 per cent vote share required for a candidate to get their £500 deposit back.
And then, of course, there was comedian Jonathan Harvey who arrived to the election hall around midnight before popping into the leisure centre toilet to put a bin over his head and emerge as alter-ego Count Binface.
Standing in his eighth election, Binface was the only realistic challenger to Farage, having been polling at 20 per cent according to pollsters Survation, behind Farage on 73 per cent. Confirming the two-horse race, at 1.20am on Friday, the acting returning officer announced that the ballot papers would be split into three piles to make counting easier: Farage, Binface and all others.
Despite the excitement surrounding Count Binface and his mildly amusing policies – including ‘to build at least one affordable house’ and capping the price of a 99 Flake at 99p – this was never really a contest. As early as half past midnight, with the count only just under way, Farage announced – from that encampment outside Clacton – that he had won ‘fairly convincingly’.
But then shock news came through at 2.50am when Farage streamed a speech online.
‘Today, voters in Clacton have stuck two fingers up to the Establishment,’ he announced. But then the Reform leader revealed he would not be attending his coronation.
Back-channel communications from Reform late on Friday told journalists not to look for Farage because he was taking ‘a well-earned break.’
Well-earned or otherwise, it was certainly a resounding victory. Of the 33 other candidates, only Count Binface won more than 5 per cent of the vote. Perhaps the result was never in doubt.
This is, in the words of Tim Bale, politics professor at Queen Mary University of London: ‘Classic Farage country.’ In 2016 more than 70 per cent of Clacton voters chose to leave the EU, while around 95 per cent of its residents were born in Britain.
‘We’ll go where Nigel wants us,’ Reform campaigner Kat Brenton told the Daily Mail on polling day. ‘We want our country back and we’ll do whatever it takes to make Nigel PM.’
‘The best thing that can happen is Nigel gets the keys to No 10,’ said 62-year-old Samuel. ‘This country is finished,’ he added.
Farage fans may have got what they wished and voted for, but of course this bizarre story has a sting in the tail. For as of yesterday morning the investigation into Farage’s alleged financial impropriety resumed.
If serious fault is found, in all likelihood yet another by-election will be called.
Alternatively, if Farage is suspended from the Commons for a period of ten days or more, then with the backing of 10 per cent of the Clacton electorate a recall petition could prompt another by-election without the intervention of Parliament.
In other words, another vote is not impossible. And following this week’s farcical by-election, it stretches credulity to imagine anyone in Clacton wants that.
