NIGEL FARAGE resigned as an MP last week to spend more of this scorching summer in his Clacton constituency by the Essex seaside. His surprise August by-election comes barely two years since these voters sent Farage to Westminster.
The Reform party leader was trying to take back control of the narrative – by pre-empting a standards investigation into whether he broke Commons rules. Newly elected MPs must declare all relevant donations from the previous 12 months.
Farage sees his £5 million gift from Reform's billionaire donor, Chris Harborne, as a purely personal matter, but also his reward for campaigning for Brexit. Once a Sunday Times investigation catalogued other undeclared support, Farage saw a call to let the people decide as his best tactic.
What Farage did not plan for was the major parties choosing not to stand. They anticipate another Clacton by-election later in the year after voters know the outcome of the investigation. So Farage's main opponent is set to be Count Binface, an alter ego of comedian Jonathan Harvey who has stood in costume against Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
Binface recently got 95 votes when running against Andy Burnham in Makerfield. “If he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won't stop him”, said chancellor Rachel Reeves, suggesting Farage's by-election had descended into farce.
Farage faces at least ten minor candidates: from the silly to the sincere, the mad and the downright dangerous. Alongside Binface and Mr Fishfinger, Piers Corbyn and ex-actor Laurence Fox, the British Democrats are running a radicalised young man, of just 21 who tweets that this is “far more than a by-election, we are fighting a war”. That he has posted on X about preferring “killing fields” to mass deportations takes the penchant for violence beyond mere metaphor. With Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain not running, several openly racist members are backing this ethnonationalist option.
The political mood shifted dramatically again from the Clacton farce to tragedy as it was revealed that the death of veteran former politician Ann Widdecombe, aged 78, at her Dartmoor home had been a brutal murder. Having been a Conservative MP until 2010, Widdecombe became a Brexit Party MEP, then a Reform Party supporter. Though Devon police initially saw no evidence of a political motive, counter-terrorism police took over the investigation, as new evidence emerged after a prime suspect was arrested in South Yorkshire. He was charged with terrorism offences, suggesting some ideological motive for the crime.
There was a sober cross-party mood in the Commons on Monday (13), with tributes to Widdecome and reflections on the murders too of Jo Cox and David Amess over the past decade. MPs from all parties spoke about reducing the anger in political debate – but often think mostly of what their political opponents could do to tone their arguments down, more than envisaging changes to their own approach too.
Farage versus Count Binface risks being over-hyped as a battle for Clacton. An Ipsos poll did show that the country, as a whole, would prefer Count Binface to Farage – by 33 per cent to 21 per cent: one more sign of how Farage mobilises more opponents than supporters nationwide. But Clacton is Reform’s most favourable constituency. Farage's parties tend to be about three times as popular there as they are nationwide.
Expect Farage to be re-elected comfortably in August, probably on a low turnout of around a third. He may then have to trouble the Clacton voters a third time later this year. Since Farage won 46 per cent in 2024, he is unlikely to become vulnerable in a contested race unless almost all Conservative and centre-left voters alight on the same candidate, or a pincer movement from Restore significantly erodes Farage’s own vote. Former Tory MP Giles Watling says he is “vaguely on stand-by” for that subsequent contest.
But Farage’s real electoral challenge is less whether he can hold Clacton, but whether Reform can make two or three hundred gains nationally. Campaigning to hold one of the four seats Reform won in 2024 is a long way from its confident boast that it could defeat Burnham's Labour as Greater Manchester elects its next mayor.
Farage’s pre-emptive resignation tacitly acknowledges unforced errors: he did not declare donations that would have been within the rules had he done so. Next week's transition of power from Keir Starmer to Burnham will reopen broader questions of what those rules should and should not allow. Burnham has made devolving power his animating theme and is exploring broader political reforms too.
There is currently no upper limit on individual donations: MPs have tabled amendments to set one, with bids ranging from £100,000 to £1 million. Some ceiling on money in electoral politics seems likely. How to set boundaries on the febrile political climate presents a tougher challenge for leaders, old and new.
Sunder Katwala British Future
Sunder Katwala is the director of thinktank British Future and the author of the book How to Be a Patriot: The must-read book on British national identity and immigration.
