𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Who’s going to win the Clacton by-election? That’s obvious – it’s Nigel Farage. He got 46.2% of the vote in the 2024 general election. Conservatives came second, with 27.9%. That means he should be the easy winner – even if the other parties were going to contest the seat. Which they’re not. And that’s a problem for Mr Farage. Nobody has ever suggested that the people of Clacton don’t want him as their MP any more, so what does he hope to prove by forcing them to go to the polls?

In his dramatic speech on Tuesday, he said: “I’ve decided that the people of Clacton should be the judges of my actions.” However, that’s not for Mr Farage to decide. Parliament’s standards commissioner, Daniel Greenberg, is investigating whether Mr Farage broke Commons rules by not declaring a £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based British crypto-currency investor. Critics say the Reform leader should have revealed this gift in the register of interests, which all MPs need to fill in.

And Mr Greenberg, a lawyer employed by Parliament, has also been asked by some MPs to investigate allegations that the Reform UK leader received undeclared gifts and payments from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster.

Mr Farage insists he did nothing wrong. Any gifts were received before he became an MP and therefore, he argues, he did not need to declare them.

However, the person who will decide whether the rules were broken is Mr Greenberg. The by-election just means his inquiry will be suspended, and start again once Mr Farage has been re-elected.

If he finds Mr Farage broke the rules he can ask the Reform leader to apologise or, if he thinks a tougher penalty is required, he can ask the Commons standards committee to impose one.

That’s the process. Parliament created this system, and MPs could change it if they wanted. But individual MPs don’t get to opt out when they are under investigation.

Mr Farage can say that the people of Clacton will judge his actions, but that’s just wrong. Daniel Greenberg will judge them.

Meanwhile, the danger for Mr Farage is that he starts to look silly.

The refusal of the other major parties to stand candidates in the by-election allows Mr Farage to say that they are scared to take him on.

But nobody has ever suggested that another party could win a by-election in Clacton. Yes, the other parties know they would lose, and they’re not hiding it. So what?

Safe seats are part of our political system. Clacton is currently a safe Reform seat.

In a similar way, Bootle, in Merseyside, is a safe Labour seat, where Labour got 69% of the vote in 2024 and Reform came second, with 12%. Is Mr Farage going to stand in Bootle? No, of course not. Does this make him “scared”? No, it just means he’s not an idiot.

So Mr Farage is left to fight against Count Binface and tiny, fringe parties hoping to get a little media coverage.

He hopes to win a moral victory, and show that the great British public is backing him in the face of a campaign by parts of the media and the political establishment to destroy him.

But Mr Farage better hope turnout in the by-election is high, and there’s no swell of support for Count Binface (comedian Jonathan Harvey). A small turnout, or a surprisingly high vote for the novelty candidate, would suggest even Brexit-backing Clacton is unimpressed by this stunt.

He has also, somewhat bizarrely, drawn more attention to his controversial financial affairs. Mr Farage may have felt that they were already in the spotlight, but the reality is that it’s a rather complex story involving House of Commons rules and procedures. Not everyone is interested.

Now, however, the media will need to explain what this by-election is about almost every time they mention it. The Reform UK leader has ensured that the donations story reaches a much larger audience.