Clacton By-Election Marks Watershed Moment for Nigel Farage and Reform UK

Late today we will know the outcome of a U.K. political by-election that has stretched credulity, even by the standards of the summer “silly season.” Last month Nigel Farage, leader of right-wing insurgent party Reform UK, stood down from parliament to stand again for his seat in the coastal constituency of Clacton-on-Sea. He did so amid intense scrutiny into his finances that culminated in a Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards investigation over his failure to declare a £5 million gift received from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne.Seeing Mr. Farage’s move to force a by-election as a self-serving political act, the other main UK political parties — Labour, the Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party — refused to field candidates, meaning Mr. Farage will almost certainly win. His chief opponent among 33 fringe candidates is a satirical prankster, Jon Harvey, who is running as Count Binface, the “Leader of the Recyclons.”Mr. Farage said it was time his local voters, not parliament or the media, determined his political future. By calling the by-election, Mr. Farage paused the investigation into his finances. The probe is expected to resume once Mr. Farage rejoins the House of Commons as a member of Parliament, although an overwhelming landslide for Mr. Farage would make it politically harder for authorities to engineer another investigation that could trigger yet another by-election at Clacton.A poll for Survation shows Mr. Farage with 73 percent of the vote, with Count Binface at 20 percent. But Reform UK, having led in national opinion polls for the past two years, is now polling behind the Labour Party, re-energized by new Prime Minister Andy Burnham. As well as Mr. Farage’s finances, investigations are ongoing into donations made to Reform before the 2024 general election, related to alleged non-declared financial support from longtime Farage ally and convicted fraudster George Cottrell and his mother.Mr. Farage, one of the most consequential figures in British politics in the past 50 years and a leading architect of Brexit, has appeared rattled in recent months. According to a recent Opinium poll for The Observer, his net approval rating is -25 percentage points, compared with +16 for Mr. Burnham and -5 for Kemi Badenoch.Having capitalized on widespread British dissatisfaction with Labour and the Conservatives, Reform UK has seen its slate tarnished by a series of scandals. And yet, criticism that Mr. Farage’s Clacton election gamble is a political stunt that will invariably backfire for his party may yet prove wide of the mark.Nobody would deny that Reform UK has had a rough time of late; the nadir was reached when their Home Affairs spokesman and former chair, Zia Yusuf, called former a Conservative defense secretary, Ben Wallace a “traitor.” Mr. Yusuf also ran an online poll asking whether Mr. Wallace, who has a distinguished military record, should be prosecuted. But the party is still better placed to exploit Britain’s unrest with the elite than their hard-right rival Restore Britain, with which it is engaged in an unseemly row.Allies of Mr. Farage claim he is increasingly the victim of a stitch-up by a cross-party establishment that is alarmed at the prospect of Reform UK being in power. The Sunday Times newspaper has been running weekly exposés of Mr. Farage’s finances, but party figures point out that Mr. Harborne is pursuing a defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, a separate part of the News Corp empire. They also claim Labour and the Conservatives cannot be overly sanctimonious about accepting unscrupulous donations.One could plausibly argue that even Count Binface is tarred by the British establishment brush. Mr. Harvey was educated at Oxford University and worked for the BBC, hardly trash credentials. Also, like Mr. Farage, he has not been untainted by scandal. Mr. Harvey retired his previous political persona, Lord Buckethead, following a copyright complaint filed by filmmaker Todd Durham, who created the character of Lord Buckethead for his 1984 science-fiction film “Hyperspace.”After a rocky few months for Reform, in which rather than consolidate their popularity to plausibly emerge as the next government-in-waiting they have apparently lost support, they will be hoping to use the Clacton by-election as an opportunity to reset. Mr. Farage is expected to use his election victory speech to highlight his recent experience of popular democracy and contrast this against Mr. Burnham’s unelected coronation as prime minister.Some in Reform even think the on-the-ground experience of the past month’s campaign will help mature a young political organization; Mr. Farage founded the Brexit Party in 2018 before rebranding it as Reform UK in 2021.The best-case scenario for Reform is that the main political parties end up regretting their decision not to field candidates against Mr. Farage, since the result would have been much closer had it been a “normal” by-election. In the coming months Mr. Farage will doubtless seek to emulate his friend Donald Trump’s success at harnessing anti-establishment sentiment in the build-up to his 2024 election victory in America.But in the outlandish cesspit that British politics has become, anyone claiming to know with certainty what happens next is talking out of Count Binface’s trash can.

Clacton By-Election Marks Watershed Moment for Nigel Farage and Reform UK

Clacton By-Election Marks Watershed Moment for Nigel Farage and Reform UK

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