Nigel Farage wins Clacton by-election boycotted by major UK parties

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has won back his seat in parliament, in a by-election boycotted by every other major British party. Farage vacated his seat and triggered the election in an effort to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”

Farage was declared the winner in his Clacton constituency on Thursday, with the Reform leader taking 63% of the vote, a 17% increase from 2024.

However, Farage’s only opponents this year were novelty and fringe candidates, with the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Greens boycotting the election. Out of these candidates, Count Binface, a BBC comedian whose costume includes a bin on his head, won 27% of the vote.

The boycott was a calculated move by the UK’s establishment parties aimed at delegitimizing the election. Farage vacated his seat in July in an attempt to win it back with a larger majority than in 2024, an outcome that would have humiliated his opponents in the mainstream parties. In a statement at the time, he described the election as a chance for voters to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”

While Farage was denied the opportunity to defeat Labour and the Conservatives for the second time in two years, he still portrayed his win on Thursday as a “victory against the establishment.”

“I called this by-election because I wanted the people of Clacton to be my judge, not the mainstream media in Britain, and the political establishment who paint us as criminals,” he told supporters after results were announced. “We have beaten the candidate for the uniparty.”

Although Count Binface was a novelty candidate, he was boosted by liberal media outlets, and according to Farage, “there were Liberal Democrats, Labour, Conservative canvassers out canvassing for Count Binface.”

At the time Farage vacated his seat, he had been under investigation by Britain’s parliamentary standards watchdog since May, over a £5 million ($6.7 million) gift he received from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne before he took office in 2024. The probe was set to be expanded after the Sunday Times revealed that he failed to declare funding from convicted fraudster George Cottrell between 2019 and 2024.

Farage maintains that he did nothing wrong, and that Harborne’s donation was “a large personal gift” which will allow him to pay his security bills. Farage insists that he was under no obligation to declare benefits from Cottrell – who allegedly allowed the Reform leader to stay in his properties and avail himself of private security – as he was not in office when he received them.

The investigation was paused when Farage relinquished its seat, but was immediately reopened once results came in on Thursday.