Farage took some 22,239 votes while his main rival - a self styled galactic space warrior with a bin on his head - took 9,455 votes. The other thirty candidates in this bizarre contest mustered barely a handful of votes and lost their deposit.
With a turnout of just 44.4% of the electorate Reform UK can hardly say that Thursday's win was a ringing endorsement for the party and Farage. And with nearly 80,000 people in the Clacton constituency, Farage has the mandate of only a little over a quarter of those eligible to vote.
While Farage can claim he increased his mandate, having increased his General Election win of 21,225, it is clearly the case that three quarters of the population are no fans of the man.
The turnout in the General Election was down from 58.7%, a sign perhaps that apathy, incredulity and a growing sense of disappointment with parliamentary democracy has set in.
Binface took nearly 1 in 4 of votes cast and was hailing it a victory given he'd increased his Makerfield by-election result from 95 to nearly 10,000.
His unprecedented share of the vote was more due to the mainstream parties standing down and calling Farage's triggering of a by-election a pointless publicity stunt. But nonetheless it was an embarrassment for the Reform leader who shied away from appearing on stage with people he described as a bunch of "nobodies."
Farage had billed the contest as a fight between himself and the establishment, which he claimed was trying to smear him with false allegations.
Many of the allegations were that he had failed to declare monies received and which had triggered a parliamentary standards committee investigation. This was halted when Farage stood down as an MP, which triggered the by-election. However, having secured a victory and become an MP once again, the investigation began again within hours.
At the end of the political circus, which cost the British taxpayer over £250,000, the situation had little changed.
Farage forced the by-election in early July to try and control the narrative. 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.
But now he was left in the same situation with the investigation restarted and with further questions surrounding his apparent lying about threats to his safety which prompted him to be the first winning candidate not to attend the count since the IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands won Fermanagh and South Tyrone in 1981.
Sands had the excuse of languishing in a prison cell at the notorious H-block prison facility where he died a few days after his historic win.
Farage's excuse was that Essex police had conveyed concerns to him prompting him to hold a Farage-fest elsewhere. Essex police denied they had spoken to any campaign teams however.
It all made Farage look somewhat sheepish. Too chicken, despite his win, to stand on stage alongside Count Binface and the plethora of loony candidates.
After the reading of the results Count Binface took centre stage. “I came first in the Clacton byelection! Of the candidates who bothered to turn up for the results.” He also revelled in his largest number of votes achieved by himself at an election.
"That means I’ve got – against Nigel Farage – 10,000% more votes than I got against Andy Burnham,” Binface said of his electoral tally. “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.”
Gathered with his supporters at an airfield on the outskirts of Clacton billed by his party as “Farage Fest” he told fans he would be damned if he was going to stand on a stage “having won a resounding victory” and “be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies”.
After Farage forced the election, support for Reform fell nationally, from just under 27% to about 24%, where it remains. The MP for Clacton’s seat looks safe, but his route to Downing Street is less certain.
tvnewswatch, London, UK
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