Farage and Count Binface go head-to-head in snap UK poll

Voters in eastern England head to the polls on Thursday for a by-election triggered by hard-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, but with mainstream parties boycotting the contest, his main rival is a satirical candidate known as Count Binface.

The traditional parties have stayed out of the contest for the Clacton parliamentary seat, which Farage has represented since July 2024, describing his decision to resign and then seek re-election as a political stunt.

Polling stations open at 7am (0600 GMT), with 34 candidates on the ballot — the highest number ever recorded in a British parliamentary election. Farage therefore faces dozens of fringe and independent candidates, including Binface.

Farage, a prominent Brexit campaigner whose anti-immigration Reform UK won local elections in May and led national opinion polls for 18 months from early last year, has remained defiant.

He has portrayed the contest as “the people of Clacton versus the Establishment”, while accusing newspapers and official investigations into his finances and donations to Reform UK of being a “stitch-up”.

“Britain needs Reform, Britain wants Reform, and Britain demands a general election,” he said in a statement late Wednesday.

Farage is widely expected to retain the Essex seat, which voted overwhelmingly to leave the European Union in the 2016 referendum. Political analysts, however, have played down the wider significance of the vote.

“It seems unlikely that the by-election will be consequential for British politics,” Will Jennings, a political science professor at the University of Southampton, told AFP.

“Victory won’t mean that questions about Farage or Reform’s finances will go away, so it seems most likely it will be a wasted summer for everyone,” he said. “When Farage returns to parliament afterwards we will be back where we started.”

A ballot paper nearly a metre long

Polls close at 10pm, with counting beginning immediately and a result expected around 7am on Friday.

Turnout could be significantly lower than the nearly 59% recorded in the 2024 general election, partly because the governing centre-left Labour Party and centre-right Conservatives are not contesting the seat.

Farage won 46% of the vote in 2024, securing the seat on his eighth attempt with a majority of 8,405 votes. Comparisons with the previous result could be difficult because of the mainstream parties’ absence.

Most of the candidates are standing as independents, producing a ballot paper almost a metre long.

Among them is Count Binface, who wears a grey dustbin over his head, a cape and silver armour. The self-styled “intergalactic space warrior” has attracted international media attention and could win about a fifth of the vote, according to a Survation poll.

He is part of a long British tradition of satirical election candidates. The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is also fielding three candidates in Clacton.

“Farage’s plan to turn this by-election into a serious political battle failed,” Stijn van Kessel, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP, saying the contest instead “makes Farage look rather silly”.

Financial scrutiny shadows Farage

Journalist Michael Crick, who wrote a 2022 biography of Farage, also described the by-election as a misjudgement.

“This has been a complete misjudgement by Farage,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “He’s hoping to become prime minister and Clacton is in no way representative of the country as a whole.”

Farage shocked Westminster when he announced on July 7 that he would resign as Clacton MP and immediately seek to win the seat again, following intense scrutiny of his and Reform UK’s finances.

The parliamentary sleaze watchdog is investigating Farage and his deputy, Richard Tice, over allegations that they failed to declare financial gifts. In Farage’s case, the investigation includes a reported £5 million ($6.7 million) donation from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne. Both deny wrongdoing.

London police have also confirmed an investigation into donations to Reform UK before the 2024 general election.

British media have reported that the investigation concerns alleged undeclared financial support from Farage ally and convicted fraudster George Cottrell and his mother.

The controversies have coincided with a decline in Reform’s support in opinion polls and a fall in Farage’s popularity.

Luke Tryl, head of the More in Common research organisation, told AFP that Farage’s core supporters “seem largely undeterred”, but newer Reform supporters “might now be wavering”.