“For a man who has built a career denouncing waste in Westminster and Whitehall, the contradiction is glaring, with the cost of polling stations, staff, security and a count of ballot papers”
Nigel Farage has for years won support by selling himself as the taxpayer’s watchdog, hunting down waste and making Westminster answer for every penny.
On Thursday, that collides with reality as the people of Clacton go back to the polls in a by-election costing around £250,000 of vital public money, despite electing him as their MP only two years ago. There was no death, no boundary change, no scandal serious enough to force him out. Just Farage’s decision to resign.
Farage has always understood the power of the outsider, the man who says that politicians live by one set of rules while ordinary people live by another. But accountability has to apply when the scrutiny lands on you.
The Reform UK leader walked away while Parliament’s standards watchdog was investigating his failure to declare a £5million gift from Thai cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne. His explanation for that money has shifted more than once: security costs, a reward for Brexit, then simply cash he was free to spend as he pleased.
Farage denies wrongdoing, and no finding has been made against him so far. Those facts matter.
So does another: when Farage stopped being an MP, the investigation stopped with him. If he returns to Parliament, it can begin again.
That is what makes this election so hard to justify. Farage could have remained representing the people who elected him, and let the process reach its conclusion.
For a man who has built a career denouncing waste in Westminster and Whitehall, the contradiction is glaring. There’s the cost of polling stations, staff, security and a count of ballot papers with a record 34 candidates.
We already know the script if Farage wins: Clacton has spoken, the establishment has been defeated, Reform is unstoppable. The trouble is, none of the major parties have fielded a candidate.
Farage may win handsomely, but one needless by-election does not prove the country has embraced him as its next Prime Minister.
This is bigger than Count Binface, a giant ballot paper or the circus gathered around this election. It is about the standards we demand from people who seek power.