Transcription
Hi, my name's Phil. I like to comment on politics, and a week ago yesterday it became clear that Nigel Farage's main opponent in the Clacton by-election, which he triggered the day before, was going to be a comedian who wears a bin on his head, and whose most enduring policies are the return of Ceefax and price caps on croissants.
In the weeks since, we've seen figures on the far right in the media falling over themselves to persuade us that it is ridiculous to describe Nigel Farage as being the establishment, but also that you know who is the establishment? Count Binface. He's the real establishment, is he? Some commentators have actually gone to extreme lengths to attack Count Binface. The sorts of desperate moves you might expect to be used against a credible rival. So, why are the right-wing melting down over the Binface challenge?
Well, it really comes down to Farage's plan going up in smoke almost as soon as he announced it. His plan was that he would fight a by-election against a normal slate of candidates. He would easily win, having multiple advantages, which include Clacton being one of the most Reform UK friendly constituencies in the country, there being no reason for other candidates to stand aside for a main challenger, there being no obvious unity candidate. The combination of Reform supportive voters and a fragmentation of opposing votes would make the contest easy for Farage. He would then claim that the investigation against him would be a waste of time, because the most serious penalty he could face would ultimately be a by-election, which he had already won. He wanted to make the parliamentary authorities look like they were the ones wasting time and money on a hit job. Instead, Farage is the one wasting time and money on a political stunt, and that is how it appears.
No matter what happens here, Farage is already suffering reputational damage. We can see that in the opinion polling which I discussed recently, but Farage now has a serious task on his hands. Against a normal field of candidates, Farage only needed to win the by-election by a comfortable margin. Now, given that he is against opponents who are used to only winning a few dozen votes, he has to win a crushingly dominant vote. Like you you're talking not far off 100%. I would say anything less than 90% would be embarrassing. The danger for Farage is that Count Binface, who normally gets under 100 votes in these elections, might end up getting a significant share. And given that the turnout is probably going to be quite low, as most voters see the election as a childish stunt, this could mean that Farage gets run a lot closer than he would like.
And as I've said before, the problem is not whether Farage can lose the Clacton seat, whether to Binface next month or a more credible candidate next time or at the general election, doesn't matter. Let Farage keep his seat for 20 years if he wants it. He doesn't want it. The problem for Farage is whether this makes him look weaker in the eyes of sorts of more usual voters all across the country. As party leader, Farage isn't just concerned with his own seat, but all the seats his party needs to target.
So, we end up with comment pieces like this in the Daily Telegraph from arch Brexiteer Daniel Hannan, who writes what he intends to be a serious piece about policy, where he trashes, if you'll pardon the pun, the very concept of Count Binface. To Hannan, Binface is not the sort of joke candidate we often get in British politics. No, no, no, he is a threat to good politics and must be denounced with all the vigor someone like him would direct against the leaders of Labour or the Lib Dems. A long article where he doesn't just attack Count Binface as a prospect for member of parliament, but he even trashes his comedic skills. "Don't don't vote for him. He's a comedian." That's the main thrust of the article. Isabel Oakshott attacked Binface as a weirdo lefty, saying he had ludicrous left-wing credentials. This is of course the sort of rhetoric they employ against political leaders whose influence they fear. Dan Wootton was having a nod at him as well. Far-right commentators have been showing actual alarm at the threats they think Farage faces.
It's very jarring when employed against Count Binface. He's not seriously trying to win the election. He's just a performance comedian, the satirist version of a method actor. His policies are not supposed to be serious. The return of Ceefax, to build at least one affordable home, croissants, and the 99p ice cream to be capped at £1.99 pence respectively. And yet these far-right commentators feel the need to explain why these policies would be bad with the same level of seriousness and urgency as when they're attacking actually serious policies from progressive parties. At PMQs this week, Reform UK's Danny Kruger insisted that the only serious candidate was the one fielded by his party. Why did he feel the need to ask a question to make that point? It's almost like Reform UK are worried that it isn't obvious that only they have fielded a serious candidate. I mean, the public aren't thinking that Count Binface is serious. Sure, he'd probably be a better MP than Nigel Farage in all seriousness, but they know Binface is a professional clown, the currently most successful of a whole host of joke candidates who stand just to inject a bit of British humor into our elections. Why are they taking him so seriously? Why the earnest character assassinations?
Because they fear the damage he can do. They have seen that Farage has made a miscalculation. He's opened himself up to ridicule, and so they have to persuade the public that this by-election is serious. They need to definitely persuade the Farage supporting voters of Clacton to turn out lest hilarious disaster befall them. There is no win for Farage from this by-election. His main rival is a man who stood in a lot of Westminster elections. He's got a long track record. The greatest number of votes he has ever won is 308. That's when he stood against Rishi Sunak in the 2024 general election. He only won 95 votes against Andy Burnham in Makerfield recently, and a mere 69 against Boris Johnson in the 2019 general election. This is not an intergalactic overlord used to harvesting the sort of vote haul which should worry incumbent MPs contesting their own seat. And yet Farage is worried.
This is why Reform UK pulled their activists from Manchester where they were actually needed. It's why allies in the media feel the need to spend their time saying how unsuitable Count Binface is for Parliament as if it weren't obvious. It's a testament to how unsuitable Nigel Farage is for Parliament that Binface is even being taken seriously. I mean, let us imagine that when Andy Burnham was set to stand for the Makerfield by-election, let us just imagine all of the major parties just refused to stand a candidate. Let us just say that for whatever reason they wanted to snub the election as a political stunt as the major parties are snubbing this election as a political stunt. Count Binface would still have been there. Would Burnham have panicked at the prospect of having Binface as his main rival? No, he'd have been pissing himself laughing at the prospect. Would Labour allies in the media be feverishly publishing articles about how Count Binface is not remotely funny, but a dangerous madman? No, they'd be relaxed because Burnham would coast to an easy win.
That Reform UK and supporters are not relaxed, that they are obsessively trashing Count Binface, suggests there is a real fear of what could happen here. They may not fear that Farage will lose the election. That would be too hilarious to hope for. But I do think they fear that the result could look weak for him. Like when a Prime Minister faces a party in the vote of no confidence, which they win, but not strongly enough to claim that they have good support in Parliament. If this election exposes the fact that a sizable proportion of Clacton voters would rather vote for a cartoon candidate than Nigel Farage, what will it say about how Reform would be seen across the country where Reform are not as strong?
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