Perhaps he feels buoyed up by securing slightly more votes in a byelection boycotted by all the main parties than he did in the general election two years ago. That was despite 10,000 fewer people turning out to vote. But there was never any question that he was going to win a byelection he called purely to deflect scrutiny of his undeclared £5m personal gift from a Thai-based crypto-billionaire and donations from a convicted fraudster.
Farage chose Clacton as his parliamentary launchpad for a reason. It was here that his previous outfit, Ukip, secured its breakthrough in the byelection of 2014. It is one of the most pro-leave seats in Britain, while Electoral Calculus estimates that almost no other constituency is this rightwing.
When I visited, I found no shortage of voters who were defiant about Farage’s scandals. They saw no problem with a politician being showered with dosh by a foreign-based billionaire, arguing that Farage deserved it because he was a “nice man” and even suggesting he might invest it locally. They bought the narrative that the establishment was out to get their man, as if a millionaire ex-City broker who is a sometime friend of the US president is some plucky outsider.
They are representative of about a fifth of the country who laud Farage as the mainstream politician most hostile to immigration, and who are contemptuous of a Conservative party that failed even on its own terms in office. What should concern Farage, however, is that most Britons are more opposed to him than ever, and are determined to block him from power. That majority delivered victory to the Greens in February’s Gorton and Denton byelection, and to Andy Burnham in June’s Makerfield byelection.
That the parody candidate Count Binface won more than a quarter of the vote in this ultra-rightwing heartland is a warning in itself. Yes, this “independent space warrior” secured plenty of media attention, but he had precious little ground game – that is, an army of volunteers to get out the vote. Many voters I spoke to hadn’t even heard of him.
It seems plausible that some of those who made Count Binface the most successful joke candidate in history had previously voted not just Labour, Lib Dem or Green, but Conservative too. Farage refused to attend the official declaration of this election he chose to call. That suggests not just petulance and contempt for his own voters, but the insecurities of a jittery man.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
