It looks like the Reform party’s leader Nigel Farage’s sudden decision to resign from parliament and re-contest in the ensuing by-election in Clacton has backfired badly. It seem like it was too clever by half, falling under the heading of ‘things that seemed like a good idea at the time’ but then went horribly wrong. Peter Walker and Rowena Mason explain what might have been the thinking behind his plan.

Farage is a grifter like his hero Trump who seems to spends most of his time making a lot of money from various side hustles. But since becoming an MP in 2024, he has been facing scrutiny about some of those things, particularly a £5 million gift by a cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harbone that he claims was not a bribe but a gift freely given with no strings or quid pro quo attached. There was a parliamentary and even police inquiry into this and Farage may have thought that at least one of those might provide grounds for a Recall Petition. If it does, then if at least 10% of voters in the constituency sign the petition, the MP will lose their seat and it will trigger a by-election. Even though Farage’s constituency of Clacton is solidly right wing, he, like Trump, is very divisive and roundly detested by those who are not his fans and so there was a very good chance that the threshold of 10% would be met, forcing him out. Although he can run again, being ousted from office is never a good look.

So Farage did a very Trumpian thing. He said that the whole process was rigged against him by the political establishment and that by resigning (thus suspending the parliamentary inquiry that is currentlyunderway) and re-contesting, the voters would be the judge of whether he should be an MP. If he won, that would be claimed to be a vindication.

But several things happened that upset that plan that he could not have foreseen. One is that all the major parties declined to contest the by-election, calling it a farce, leaving him with no credible opposition. The second is that Count Binface found himself to be the main rival candidate. The other parties seem to be quite content to let Binface represent the anti-Farage voters with Conservative and Labour parties leaders signaling their support for Binface.

To add to Farage’s woes, there have emerged yet more allegations of suspicious donations.

Police are investigating donations worth £500,000 made to Reform UK by the mother of a convicted fraudster and ally of Nigel Farage.

The investigation concerns two donations of £250,000 made by Fiona Cottrell, whose son George has often accompanied Farage to Reform events and media appearances. The May 2024 donations are under investigation over whether they were intended to conceal a donation by an impermissible donor.
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The donations appear to be separate to a deposit of about £1m that Fiona Cottrell made in June 2024 to a company run by Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader.
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And it will add to questions facing Fiona Cottrell, who has not responded to detailed questions from the Guardian about her financial involvement with Reform. She refused to comment about the donation currently under police investigation, the Times reported. She is understood to be of relatively modest means, and yet has donated a total of £1.75m to Reform UK and its fundraising vehicle Britain Means Business.

All this means that these scandals will be playing out during an election in which Farage will find it hard to claim to be running against the establishment when his opponent is someone with a trash can on his head. While a two-person race would be bad enough, it appears that there will be two other candidates, both of whom are more likely to split the Reform vote. One is the actor Laurence Fox representing the extreme right wing Reclaim Party (people may remember him as the grumpy detective sergeant in the long-running Inspector Lewis police procedural TV series) and the other is the Monster Raving Loony Party. (There are three extreme right wing parties in the UK: Reform, Reclaim, and Restore. Reform currently has seven seats in parliament, Restore has one, and Reclaim none, when their sole MP quit the party. Why they would choose names that are so similar beats me.)

This has created an enormous amount of media coverage for Binface, the 5,900-year-old leader of the Recyclons from the planet Sigma IX, with calls for voters to unite behind him. So this has become essentially a two-person race and people are being urged to rally behind Binface who has been surprised at the outpouring of support.

[Binface] said that he had been inundated over the past 48 hours with emails and messages from Binface activists offering to knock on doors and deliver leaflets on his behalf in what could yet emerge as an electoral shock on a par with when Hartlepool United’s mascot, H’Angus the Monkey, was elected as mayor of the northern English town.
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In the meantime, his candidacy has massively boosted interest in a live show Binface is due to perform on Thursday at London’s Museum of Comedy. The event is sold out and plans are being made for alternative dates amid a surge in interest in Harvey’s work.

Binface admitted to knowing little about Clacton but was pleased by what he had recently learned. “I have heard it’s on the sea and I have heard it has got a pier. In fact I was about to abolish it but then someone pointed out that it is a pier, not a peer. And I’ve also heard that the people are not necessarily all as Brexity … so there you go.” The area of Essex where Clacton is located recorded one of the highest votes to leave the EU in 2016.

Binface hopes to appeal to disillusioned Reform voters and others who would have voted for Labour, the Conservatives or other parties had they been given a chance. “When you think about it, you can see why I might court the immigrant vote in fact. I’m the ultimate alien, though I should stress, not an illegal one,” he added.

He has said that his main campaign slogan will be “I’m not Nigel Farage”, which undoubtedly has a powerful appeal.

This has resulted in Farage being in a no-win situation. If he wins the by-election, it will be against a trash bin and thus meaningless. If he loses, it will be a loss for the ages and an ignominy he will find hard to live down and likely signal the end of his political career. It seems that Reform is sufficiently alarmed by this possibility that they have asked their party activists to go to Clacton to canvass for Farage.

Reform UK activists have been urged to divert from the Greater Manchester mayoral byelection to support Nigel Farage’s “fake” contest 250 miles away in Clacton.

A WhatsApp message shared with party members in north-west England said: “The message could not be more clear. We now need all of our fantastic activists, branch officers and councillors to come and help us in Clacton.”
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A Reform UK councillor who received the WhatsApp message, sent on Wednesday, said the party was “desperate” to show support for its embattled leader, even at the expense of surrendering the chance to win the mayoralty.

What can work in Farage’s favor is that even voters who hate him might not relish their electorate becoming a laughing stock by electing Binface. So they might just sit this one out and not vote for him.

UK bookies have lowered the odds against Binface winning. Farage still remains the heavy favorite at ⅛ while Binface has a respectable 5/1. Both Fox at 66/1 and MRLP at 100/1 are rank outsiders. There is no tradition of debates among candidates so we will have to see what opinion polls say.