𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Walking through Clacton-on-Sea’s streets just hours after Nigel Farage’s win was announced, you’d expect to feel a buzz in the air – either celebration or heated debate. Instead, the Essex seaside town felt very quiet on the political front. Head shakes, swift brush-offs and outright refusals met almost every attempt to get people to chat.

Truth is, hardly anyone wanted to talk politics. Admittedly, a huge proportion of those I approached were tourists – either from the UK or abroad – not a shock considering it is currently about 30C and everyone is in shorts and sunglasses. While the streets may be empty, the beach certainly isn’t. Out of all locals approached along the seafront and near the Leisure Centre polling station, only one person was willing to speak to me: a local man named Chris.

Sitting on a shaded bench by the seafront, Chris was open about his frustration with the election and the Reform UK leader. A longstanding Conservative voter, he admitted he was disappointed that none of the other major parties stood candidates, leaving traditional voters with very little choice.

Faced with his ballot paper, Chris made a choice that pretty much summed up how many felt – he voted for Count Binface, calling him the “most credible candidate” on the list. He mentioned that locals had only really seen Nigel Farage around election time when the media cameras turned up.

Chris said locals had only really seen Farage pop up when the campaign trail started, and the TV cameras rolled into Essex. I’d travelled down to attend his planned victory speech, but the event was abruptly cancelled in the early hours of this morning, and, after he skipped attending the count entirely, it was hard to argue with Chris’s point. Instead, Nigel Farage reportedly spent the night at an all-night party dubbed “Farage Fest”, which was held at a secure airfield location in the Essex countryside just on the outskirts of his Clacton constituency.

While he fully expected Mr Farage to win, Chris admitted he voted for Binface specifically to try to reduce his overall majority: “[Farage] wants to turn Clacton into a Reform stronghold,” he told me.

Looking down the quiet street, Chris added that he wasn’t at all surprised by the low turnout (66%) or the amount of spoiled ballots handed in by fed-up residents.

What particularly stood out, though, was the creeping sense that this whole circus isn’t over yet. With the parliamentary standards watchdog resuming its investigation into Farage’s undeclared £5million gift, there was a widespread feeling among locals that they could easily be dragged back to the polling stations all over again in just a few months.

As the news crews pack up their kit and head home for the weekend, the mood left behind in Clacton is hard to miss. People feel like a convenient political backdrop – and hours after the result was declared, most simply didn’t want to know.