In a lively electoral battle, Nigel Farage emerged victorious in the Clacton by-election, successfully retaining his seat against a lineup of quirky challengers, most notably led by the eccentric Count Binface.
Capturing 22,239 votes, the leader of Reform UK triumphed with 63.3 percent of the total ballots cast. This outcome surpasses the previously impressive 21,225 votes he garnered during his initial election to the Essex jurisdiction in the 2024 general election.
Count Binface, a comedic figure posing as an ancient interstellar warrior over 5,900 years old, took second place with a manifesto focusing on freezing ice cream prices in Clacton at 99p. He garnered 9,455 votes, equating to 26.9 percent of the vote.
Farage framed the electoral challenge as a grand standoff between ‘the people’ and ‘the Establishment’, ignited by probing questions regarding a hefty £5 million donation from crypto magnate Christopher Harborne.
The parliamentary examination into Harborne’s contribution is ongoing, leaving the door open for another by-election should Farage be judged to have breached House of Commons protocols. An impending interview with a parliamentary standards watchdog looms as MPs prepare to reconvene at Westminster following their summer interlude.
The Reform leader, 62, sparked chaos and confusion in the early hours of Friday morning when he declared himself the winner of the Clacton by-election. He then took the unprecedented step of missing the count to hear the result, with his party claiming police had advised him to stay away due to a ‘credible threat’.
However, Essex Constabulary then denied that it had told any of the 34 candidates that they should not attend Clacton Leisure Centre, insisting security at the venue was ‘robust’. After the by-election result was formally declared shortly after 6am, Mr Farage posted on X: ‘The result in Clacton speaks for itself.’
His decision to stay away was criticised by some leading figures within Reform, while Labour swiped the ‘distraction’ of the by-election triggered by Mr Farage ‘doesn’t clear his name’ amid the scrutiny of his donations from wealthy backers.
The other main political parties had all boycotted yesterday’s by-election, branding it a ‘farce’ and a ‘stunt’, leaving Mr Farage to face 33 rivals on the longest ballot paper in British electoral history. They included Count Binface, Howling Laud Hope, Nick the Incredible Flying Brick and Baron Von Thunderclap.
Nigel Farage (pictured during his 3am victory speech) has won the Clacton by-election after being forced to defend his seat against a string of comedy candidates led by Count Binface
Count Binface celebrates as he came second in the Clacton by-election. He kept his deposit for the first time after winning 9,455 votes, 26.9% of the total votes cast
There were a record-breaking 34 candidates in the Clacton by-election, which is estimated to have cost taxpayers around £250,000
Speaking at an overnight Reform rally in Essex, Mr Farage had announced himself the winner of the contest but revealed he wouldn’t be attending the formal result declaration on Friday morning.
‘I’m not scared of these people, far from it. But I’m damned if I’m going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory, and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies, and I will not, sadly, be attending the count,’ he told supporters.
A Reform UK spokesman said: ‘Essex Police advised Nigel not to attend the count due to a credible threat against him’, adding his planned ‘victory lap’ of Clacton and speech later today have also been cancelled.
Mr Farage instead delivered his victory speech at the fairground-style rally, dubbed ‘Farage Fest’, with a Ferris wheel nearby.
He said: ‘The verdict is now in, and it is a convincing, overwhelming win with more votes than we got in the General Election of 2024. Today the voters in Clacton have stuck up two fingers to the entire political establishment.’
The Reform leader added his victory vindicated his decision to resign as an MP last month and seek a fresh mandate from voters, despite Binface securing more than a quarter of the votes. ‘I was right to do this. This is an overwhelming endorsement of me,’ the Brexiteer said.
Asked about the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner’s investigation into his finances, he replied: ‘Who cares? Who cares? The voters of Clacton don’t care.’
He added: ‘Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative canvassers have been out for Binface. They aren’t going to win. The uni-party aren’t going to win. They won’t call a second by-election here. They would be stupid to do so.’
But Tim Montgomerie, a political commentator and prominent Reform member, criticised Mr Farage’s ‘puzzling’ decision not to attend the result declaration.
‘He should be on every TV screen this morning – underlining his win – and with that cheeky, trademark smile on his face,’ Mr Montgomerie posted on X.
‘Being the Nigel that so many voters like the idea of hanging out with… in a pub. But this recently far too dominant aggrieved tone is still with us. It’s not good.
‘You don’t skip your own victory count without a much better explanation. Anger from politicians can work but only if it’s on behalf of others – not yourself. He’s distracting from his victory. Puzzling.’
Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson claimed Mr Farage still had to ‘come clean’ over his mega-donation from Mr Harborne and his links to George Cottrell, a convicted criminal and long-term ally.
She said: ‘Let’s be clear: this is no victory for Nigel Farage. The mountain of sleaze and scandal he and Reform are now engulfed in has grown and grown while he’s been trying to distract the public by fighting a by-election against a bin.
‘This morning, Nigel Farage shouldn’t be celebrating – he should wake up and smell the coffee. He must come clean with the public and put all the facts on the table over his secret £5 million gift, his relationship with a convicted fraudster, and the other scandals his party is drowning in.
‘Farage’s distraction by-election doesn’t clear his name – it just shows he likely has so much more to hide.’
The Liberal Democrats said the parliamentary probe into Mr Farage’s donations ‘must crack on’.
Count Binface said he was ‘the winning candidate of the candidates who bothered to turn up for the results’ and that the Clacton result had ‘humiliated’ Mr Farage.
He also noted how he received a near 10,000 per cent increase in his vote share than he won at the Makerfield by-election in June against Andy Burnham, who went on to replace Keir Starmer as Prime Minister.
In a video posted on X, Count Binface said: ‘I can officially say that I am the winning candidate of the candidates who bothered to turn up for the results.
‘That’s right, 9,455 actual votes. Just eight weeks ago in Makerfield, I got 95. That means I’ve got against Nigel Farage 10,000 per cent more votes than I got against Andy Burnham. What does that tell you?
‘Well, it tells you that Nigel, who said that he didn’t want to be humiliated, maybe has been. As for me, I’m over the moon. I’m over your moon. I’m over my moons. And what comes next? Well, we shall see.
‘But you know what? We know this for a fact. Over one in four people in this constituency would rather have Count Binface as their MP than the leader of Reform UK, and I’m just getting started.’
Reform’s chairman Lee Anderson said he had not spoken to Mr Farage about the claim he had been advised not to attend the official result declaration.
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘I’ve not spoken to Nigel about this. I’ve not spoken to Essex Police.
‘If Nigel gets up on stage and says that he’s been advised not to attend the event, then I believe Nigel above the police, and especially above you lot at the BBC.’
Polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice said the turnout for the Clacton by-election of 44.37 per cent would allow Reform to argue that local voters had not regarded the contest triggered by Mr Farage as a ‘stunt’ or a ‘farce’.
He highlighted how it was 10 percentage points above the turnout of the 2008 by-election in Haltemprice and Howden, which was triggered by Tory candidate David Davis but boycotted by other parties.
Sir John told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘The argument that was being used by Farage’s opponents is this was a stunt; it was a farce, as exemplified by the fact that Count Binface was seemingly his own serious candidate.
‘Reform will now be able to point out not only as a result of the high turnout, the number of votes that they’ve got, but that also that evidently at 44 per cent, the turnout is 10 points above what happened in David Davis’s by-election.
‘It’s not much below what it was in either Runcorn or Gorton and Denton in the by-elections there, and it was actually higher than the two parliamentary by-elections in Scotland recently.
‘Therefore, I think they will be able to argue that, for the voters at least, it is not obvious that they regarded this as a stunt or a farce. They did turn out in numbers that are quite healthy by the standards of modern by-elections.’
Candidates, including Count Binface, were briefed on the result shortly after sunrise on Friday – but Mr Farage stayed away
A group of police officers are pictured outside the by-election count at Clacton Leisure Centre in Essex
Tim Montgomerie, a political commentator and prominent Reform member, criticised Mr Farage’s ‘puzzling’ decision not to attend the result declaration
Count Binface had earlier said the result of the Clacton by-election, which cost taxpayers £250,000, did not matter because ‘we’ll be back again in a few weeks anyway’.
Mr Farage faces awkward questions after the result because, while he increased his share of the vote from 46.2 per cent to 63.3 per cent, around a third of voters backed novelty candidates with no policies and no realistic prospect of winning.
With the by-election sowing seeds of discontent even among some of Mr Farage’s most loyal supporters, his 8,405 majority in 2024 increased to 12,784.
Count Binface, whose key pledges included keeping ice creams with flakes at 99p, making arcade grabber games fairer and filling potholes with the 2024 Labour manifesto became the first comedy candidate in parliamentary history to save his deposit.
He pulled in thousands of votes in the record-breaking 34-candidate contest, which featured three Monster Raving Loony Party hopefuls and former actor Laurence Fox.
The turnout was slightly higher than expected, at 44.37 per cent, but lower than the 52.5 per cent at Mr Burnham’s Makerfield by-election victory last month.
But Mr Farage was not in the hall to hear the result – and the first election winner to miss the declaration since IRA member Bobby Sands, who had died in prison after a hunger strike.
Acting returning officer Ian Davidson, for Tendring District Council, announced over the tannoy system in the early hours of Friday that Mr Farage would not be attending.
‘I just want to say we work very closely with Essex Police and have done so throughout this process and continue to do so tonight,’ said Mr Davidson. ‘We will continue with the count as we always do in a safe and secure manner.’
‘I will not comment on security matters, but I am going to say that we are working closely with Essex Police and we have just had a further meeting and there is no issue in terms of completing the count tonight,’ he added.
Essex Police denied they advised Mr Farage to stay away and said in a statement: ‘We have a proportionate and robust policing operation to ensure the safety and security of all participants in the count.’
Mr Farage had declared himself the ‘fairly convincing’ winner at around 1am while celebrating at his ‘Farage Fest’ in the Essex countryside, which included fairground rides and a Ferris wheel.
The Reform leader’s re-election to Parliament was confirmed at around 6am when the count was completed at Clacton Leisure Centre.
In a barbed comment aimed at Binface, Mr Farage said: ‘I have managed to beat the establishment candidate.’
Binface hit back, saying the by-election had shown that a huge number of people in Clacton ‘would rather vote for a space warrior shaped like a bin than Nigel Farage’.
He added: ‘It says more about what the actual population thinks about Nigel Farage than maybe this election.’
Former Reform parliamentary candidate Pamela Walford, who stood as an independent, said Mr Farage’s by-election had turned Clacton into the ‘laughing stock of the world’.
The leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party, Howling Laud Hope, said: ‘Binface is the poor man’s loony. We’re the most sensible part of the lot.’
Mr Farage may yet face another by-election in Clacton if he is found to have broken parliamentary rules by taking millions from Mr Harborne before taking his seat in the Commons two years ago.
He also faces a second investigation over undeclared donations from his close friend Mr Cottrell – known as ‘Posh George’ and who was convicted of wire fraud in the US – with the sleaze inquiries not expected to conclude until September at the earliest.
‘Do you know, if I made one sin, if I haven’t filled in a piece of paper, I’ve broken no law, I’ve broken no tax law, I’ve taken no public money,’ Mr Farage said of the donations row this morning.
‘Maybe I haven’t filled in a piece of paper. I’m confident that I’m right, we’ll see where we go. I put this to the people of Clacton, said ‘you decide my future’, and tonight they will.’
If Parliament’s standards committee recommends suspending Mr Farage for more than 10 days, and he loses any appeal, his constituents would have the right to trigger another Clacton by-election that the major parties are more likely to contest.
Count Binface said: ‘It might just be that this election is the start of a two-legged match, like the Carabao Cup or the Cold War. The game isn’t over yet, because we’re going to be back again in a few weeks aren’t we? We’ll see what happens then.’
Neither Labour, the Conservatives nor the Lib Dems fielded candidates on Thursday, dismissing the contest as an expensive ‘farce’ called because the Reform leader is allegedly ‘up to his neck in sleaze’.
Mr Farage had triggered the by-election by resigning as Clacton’s MP in early July, insisting voters should decide whether he deserved to continue in office amid scrutiny of his financial affairs.
The Reform leader argued a fresh mandate was the only way to break the ‘paralysis’ engulfing Reform UK as questions swirled around crypto-currency donations, undeclared benefits and his personal finances.
But while Mr Farage claimed vindication after securing re-election, critics accused him of turning the Essex seaside town into a ‘circus’ featuring Count Binface, Reclaim Party leader Mr Fox and dozens of independents and novelty candidates.
The result came at a difficult time for Reform, with recent polls suggesting Labour has edged ahead of Mr Farage’s party nationally.
Mr Farage is under investigation by Parliament’s standards commissioner over the £5million donation from Thailand-based Mr Harborne that was not declared after the 2024 general election.
The Clacton MP has also faced questions over support provided by Mr Cottrell, who reportedly funded staff and accommodation used by the Reform leader before and after last year’s election.
Mr Farage insists he has done nothing wrong and says all support he received complied with the rules.
However, if the standards commissioner were to uphold complaints against him, it could potentially trigger further political consequences and renewed scrutiny of his position and another by-election in Clacton if locals demand it.
The Reform leader defended his decision to force yesterday’s by-election, saying it gave residents the chance to act as ‘the judges of my actions’.
Announcing his resignation last month, he said: ‘I have done nothing wrong. I have not broken the law in any way at all.’
He added: ‘This will be a people versus the Establishment by-election. It’s a chance to stick two fingers up to the entire Establishment.’
But opponents argued the move backfired.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch mocked the contest, saying: ‘If it’s the people versus the establishment, I think Nigel Farage might be looking like the establishment, and Count Binface may be the people. This whole thing is a farce.’
A spokesman for Mr Burnham described the vote as a ‘gimmick designed to distract from serious allegations about Farage’s funders’.
Sir Keir previously claimed Mr Farage had ‘run himself into a cul-de-sac’ by quitting as an MP and forcing a by-election and was ‘up to his neck in sleaze’.
The Clacton by-election had 34 candidates – making it the longest ballot paper in British electoral history at around 3ft long
One of the biggest talking points of the contest was the performance of Count Binface, who became the first comedy candidate ever to retain a parliamentary deposit.
The self-described ‘5,900-year-old space warrior’ won thousands of votes after campaigning on promises including ‘building one affordable house’ and ‘nationalising Adele’.
Before Thursday’s result, the late Screaming Lord Sutch was widely regarded as Britain’s most successful novelty election candidate.
In the 1994 Rotherham by-election he secured around 1,100 votes and 4.2 per cent of the vote, still short of the 5 per cent threshold required to recover his deposit.
Mr Farage had repeatedly accused the major parties of secretly ‘working together’ by refusing to contest the seat and undermining his attempt to frame the vote as a battle against the establishment.
He comfortably won Clacton at the 2024 general election with a majority of 8,405 and 46.2 per cent of the vote.
The by-election is also likely to prove expensive.
The average cost of a Westminster by-election is around £240,000, but Clacton’s bill is expected to be higher because it featured the longest ballot paper in British electoral history.
Tendring Council admitted printing costs were around four times higher than normal because of the 34-candidate field.
Alongside Count Binface, an intergalactic space warrior played by Jonathan Harvey who has stood at elections since 2017 and had never before received more than 308 votes, the people of Clacton were largely presented with a string of eccentric oddballs.
Questions over Mr Farage’s finances have continued to dog him throughout the campaign.
The £5million donation from Mr Harborne was not declared when Mr Farage entered Parliament, with the Reform leader arguing the money was a personal payment linked to security costs and his role in Brexit.
He has also refused to distance himself from Mr Cottrell, saying he will not abandon his friend.
Meanwhile, Reform’s position in the polls has slipped since the by-election was announced.
A recent Daily Mail poll-of-polls put Labour on 25 per cent, narrowly ahead of Reform on 24 per cent, with the Conservatives on 20 per cent.
Mr Farage’s personal ratings have also come under pressure amid the row over his finances and his decision to trigger the vote.
One recent poll suggested his net approval rating had fallen sharply in the weeks after the by-election was called, leaving him with his lowest rating since returning as Reform leader more than two years ago.
Yet despite the criticism, Mr Farage will argue that voters in Clacton have delivered the verdict that matters most, handing him another victory in the seat he risked everything to defend.
