Nigel Farage to spend summer season ‘arguing with a bin’ in Clacton by-election as he formally quits as MP
Nigel Farage looks set to face fringe candidates including comedy candidate Count Binface, a 40-something who describes himself as an ‘intergalactic space warrior’
Nigel Farage ‘deserves to be taught a lesson’ in by-election fight, says TUC(Image: Getty Images)
Nigel Farage looks set to spend the summer “arguing with a bin” as he faces a by-election fight with comedy candidate Count Binface. The Reform chief, who officially quit as the MP for Clacton on Wednesday, faced mockery after his “pathetic” plot to trigger an August contest backfired. All the major political candidates are not standing candidates, accusing Mr Farage a desperate stunt to shake off a scandal over a £5million gift.
It means Mr Farage looks set to face fringe candidates including satirical candidate Count Binface, a 40-something who describes himself as an “intergalactic space warrior”.
Keir Starmer said Mr Farage had “run into a cul-de-sac” as his by-election plan has left him exposed as a “complete charlatan”.
TUC General Secretary Paul Nowak told The Mirror : “It’s perfectly fitting for Nigel Farage to go up against a bin given the amount of rubbish he talks. Let’s call this out for what it is – a pathetic political stunt – and he deserves to be taught a lesson.“ Rachel Reeves gave the green-light for Mr Farage to quit the Commons as the MP for Clacton – a seat he won just two years ago at the general election. Under archaic rules, MPs cannot technically resign and must instead be appointed to symbolic roles by the Treasury which bars them from the Commons.
The Chancellor said: “It is a farce and a desperate distraction, and the people of Clacton deserve better. But if he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won’t stop him.” PM-in-waiting Andy Burnham also mocked the Reform chief as he posted a picture alongside Count Binface – a fringe rival he faced in last month’s Makerfield by-election. “Always worth knowing when bin day is,” Mr Burnham posted on X. Outgoing Prime Minister also told reporters at the Nato summit: “He’s been utterly exposed over the last 24 hours with this desperate measure. “We know why he’s done it. He’s absolutely up to his neck in sleaze. He doesn’t want to answer questions from any of you or in Parliament, because he can’t answer those questions.” Mr Starmer said Labour should stand a candidate in Clacton if Mr Farage is forced into a second by-election by Parliament’s commissioner for standards down the line.
The former Ukip leader was being investigated over his failure to declare a £5million gift from Thai-based crypto billionaire, Christopher Harborne, before the general election. That probe has been paused due to Mr Farage’s resignation as an MP – but wil be revived if he wins the by-election this summer against fringe candidates. Asked if he’d endorse Count Binface this time round, the PM added : “I think it’s actually against Labour Party rules to endorse another…..Poor old binface – I gave him a bit of a doing over at PMQs last week, so I better not go any further down that road.” On Wednesday a spokesman for Mr Farage’s right-wing outfit said: “Reform UK will move the writ tomorrow (THURS) morning, and we are proposing a by-election on 6 August.” But a Labour source suggested the earliest a contest could be held is August 13. They told The Mirror: ”Looks like Reform are talking garbage yet again. Their pathetic stunt is backfiring massively and they’re waking up to the fact they’ve made their leader publicly fight a bin. They can’t even get the date of the election right.
“Farage seems so confused at the moment, perhaps someone should check if he knows when his bin day is.”
Asked what his appeal was in the Clacton constituency, the joke candidate Count Binface told the BBC Today programme: “I’m not Nigel Farage”.
He conceded he will probably not win in Clacton, where Mr Farage had a majority of 8,405 and 46.2% of the vote in 2024. He said: “My job is to celebrate and defend the wonders of British democracy. And look at this, eh? The fact that you are interviewing me on the Today programme, because all the other parties aren’t standing, says more about them than it does about me.
“Are they running scared from old Binny, or do they think that Nigel’s running a cunning stunt? And I pronounced that carefully at 8.55 in the morning.”
Despite the cost of the by-election set to exceed £200,000, elections guru Sir John Curtice said the poll could turn out to be a damp squib after other major parties said they will not compete.
He added: “I think certainly his hope that he would have a by-election in which he would be taking on all of the other political parties, that therefore it would be quite a very substantial political circus that would receive a great deal of attention, it looks as though that’s not going to happen, because it’s a bit like somebody saying, ‘come on, let’s go and play football’, but then none of the other kids are willing to play.”
Mr Farage whined on GB News on Wednesday he had been painted as a “war criminal”. He said: “It seems that the media and political classes want to paint me out to be like a war criminal, as if everything I’ve ever done is wrong, is bent, is corrupt.
“I don’t get a chance to properly answer it. I don’t see why I should be judged by them. We’ll ask the people here what they think, and if they give me a big endorsement, that sends a big message to the establishment.”
