Dawn had long broken in the Essex town of Clacton-on-Sea when the results for the byelection came in. After a gruelling count, an atmosphere of deep exhaustion had settled over the room. Even the man with a dustbin on his head looked weary.
As it was declared that Nigel Farage had won, as expected, there was no cheering in the room, which had been boycotted by the Reform UK leader and his supporters; instead there was only an overwhelming sense of futility. Farage forced the byelection at the start of July in an attempt take control of a narrative tide that had turned against him. After the Guardian revealed he had received a £5m personal gift from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based crypto billionaire, in April 2024, he had been dogged by questions about his financial backing.
Other revelations followed and questions mounted. The parliamentary standards watchdog announced it was opening a formal investigation into gifts received by Farage, and his regular long press conferences abruptly stopped. When he did a very limited number of interviews, Farage, normally performatively affable, was testy and defensive.
He resigned as the MP for the Clacton constituency at the start of July, saying the “people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions”, and billing the fight as a “people versus the establishment” byelection. The establishment, however, chose not to play. All of the major parties declined to field candidates and take part in what they called a “media circus” and “vanity project”.
Instead, Count Binface, the self-declared “entirely independent space warrior” created by the comedian Jon Harvey, stepped into the void. It felt, at times, less like an election campaign and more of a showcase for British humour, the ultimate distillation of the concept of a summer “silly season” of news. And while the people of Clacton did back Farage again, it was no overwhelming victory.
He won 22,239 votes, 63.34% of the vote. Convincing, yes, but significantly short of the 72% won by David Davis in 2008 when he resigned his seat and stood again as a protest over the issue of civil liberties. With no other mainstream options, the parody candidate Count Binface, was Farage’s nearest competitor, winning 9,455 votes, or one in four of the votes cast.
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