Clacton By-Election Looms as Farage Triggers Contest Amidst Probes

It was one of the most-watched contests of the 2024 general election, where Nigel Farage’s campaign culminated with the Reform UK leader addressing thousands on Clacton’s seafront through the hatch of an armoured Land Rover.

Two years on, however, the prospect of a second “battle of Clacton” was unravelling in the hours after Farage’s announcement that he was triggering a “people versus the establishment byelection” at a time when he faces two parliamentary probes into financial support he received, including questions over a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire and Reform donor Christopher Harborne.

Farage’s sworn rival on the hard right, Rupert Lowe, was the first of the rival parties to announce that he would not be running a candidate from Restore Britain, which has already showed, at the recent Makerfield byelection, that it can drain Reform votes

The Liberal Democrats, Conservatives and Labour followed with confirmation that they too won’t run candidates, with a Labour spokesperson accusing Farage of “desperately trying to change the subject” from what it described as the “sleaze scandal engulfing him”.

In Clacton, there was weariness about the impending election – and Westminster politics in general.

Paul Thompson said he had always been a Labour voter in the past, but would no longer vote for any party because “everyone’s just out for their own”.

He cited daily struggles, such as getting easy access to medication he needed, saying the UK’s future political leaders had a big job on their hands. “I’m afraid this country needs a bloody good kick up the arse”.

While he had had it with politics, he said it was important that someone stand against Farage. “I don’t like the bloke ... haven’t from the beginning,” he said, citing of what he characterised as Farage’s hard-right politics.

Zoe Waters was less inclined to give a view on Farage personally, but she painted a picture of a polarised town, where there are people who would back Farage regardless of what he did, and those who have seen an ineffective constituency MP in the past couple of years.

“I have heard from people that he is a joke, he shouldn’t be reelected. Then you get people who love him,” she said. “A lot of my friends are very anti him – they have said he is racist. I don’t really know [about that], I don’t have an opinion. But I have had family who have put in letters and emails for him to help, and he doesn’t even reply ... they have the hump about that.”

Labour is wary of engaging all of its firepower at a Clacton byelection when Andy Burnham, who is expected to become party leader and prime minister by the end of this month, was aiming to spend the impending summer recess setting out his stall, according to one Burnham ally.

“We need to get out to the country, all guns blazing, real positivity and lots of big announcements focussed on hopes. I would be very worried if we got distracted by a Clacton sideshow,” they said.

“A new prime minister needs to be the main story the country is hearing about, not Nigel Farage. We should not give him what he wants.”

The prospect of the Green party flying the flag as the sole primary challenger to Farage has raised the prospect of a populist left versus populist right face-off. The only other to confirm is veteran novelty candidate Count Binface.

Earlier in the day, the Green’s co-deputy leader Mothin Ali told Times Radio: “We stand in every election. That’s what the Green party does.” Discussions about that were still ongoing into the early evening however.

Among those who took on Farage in 2024, meanwhile, there was a difference of opinion.

Giles Watling, the actor and Tory incumbent who was unseated by Farage, said that he was currently in the midst of preparing for a role in a theatre production next month in the constituency, but had told the Conservative chairman that he had been prepared to take on Farage again as the Tory candidate.

“I feel young and I also feel that I would be the person to beat this populist surge,” he said.

Another of Farage’s opponents from 2024, Labour’s Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, said he would have been willing to stand to counter Reform’s populism, but that the “good people of Clacton should be remembered in all this”.

From Reform, meanwhile, the position has continued to be a bullish one, with the party chair, Lee Anderson, insisting that Farage would win the byelection by more than 50% of the vote, in a result that would “send shockwaves through the establishment”.

The question is, against who?

One other former MP for Clacton – the Tory-turned-UKIP defector Douglas Carswell – was among those suggesting that what appeared to be an eye-catching gambit by Farage at the start of the day was now not without risks.

“He says this will be the people versus the establishment,” Carswell told Times Radio.

“But it could actually just be Lord Binface and [the] Monster Raving Looney party against Nigel, with lots of people scratching their heads thinking, what was all that about?”