On polling day, at the literally-named ‘Ice Cream and Chips’ kiosk on Clacton Pier, 20-year-old Maddison Dunston was counting the cost of a 99 flake.
“A box of flakes is £40, Whippy mix is £5 a bottle,” she said, countering one of Count Binface’s key political policies – to make 99 Flakes cost 99p. “We just can’t do whippy-with-a-flake any cheaper than £3.” This morning, Mr Whippy-sellers at every price point can heave a sigh of relief. Adele remains privatised. No water bosses will be forced to take a dip in British rivers, people using speakerphone on public transport will escape conscription – and 99p flakes still cost £3 and upwards on the award-winning pier.
As 19-year-old Binface voter Max told us outside Boots this morning, tongue firmly in his cheek, “I’m disappointed. I’d like to have seen Adele nationalised, but I wasn’t sure about banning loud snacks in cinemas.” Count Binface leaves the Sunshine Coast defeated and presumably by starship, but the question left hanging this morning in the Essex heatwave, was whether he has delivered Nigel Farage one of those Shakespearian blows that looks like a scratch but turns out to be fatal.
“I am damned if I am going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory… and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies,” Mr Farage said last night, refusing to attend the official count at a local leisure centre, and instead appearing by video link from “Farage Fest”, an angry Glastonbury on a nearby airfield.
Anyone squinting into the North Sea off the famous Pier this morning can see that ship has already sailed. Yes, the Reform leader has been overwhelmingly re-elected in his heartland constituency. It’s also true that one in four voters voted for a bin – the biggest vote ever for a novelty candidate.
And today, the parliamentary investigation into the alleged sleaze swirling around Mr Farage’s financial affairs resumes. The Reform leader is currently being investigated over claims he broke parliamentary rules by not declaring £5 million he received from Christopher Harborne or financial help he received from “Posh” George Cottrell.
There had been plenty of swagger from the Reform canvassers in Farage football shirts gathering on the terrace of the beach-facing Wetherspoons on polling day – and there was plenty on the morning after the result. Dionne Marsh, 68, and her husband Tom 73, told us the right man won. “It’s absolutely ridiculous, 9,000 people voting for a bin! They need their heads twisting! Nigel’s party is the only one which can save this country.”
The Reform leader’s financial matters were his own business, the dental practice manager and a retired council worker, said. “It’s not for us to decipher.” But deep down, Reform must have known Farage’s star was in danger of fading. The party did not spend more than £10,000 on social media adverts for nothing.
Outside a boarded up shop, Gemma Long, 48, told us she had boycotted the vote. “And if I had voted, it wouldn’t have been for Nigel Farage,” she said. “What that £5 million could have done here! The bank I worked in closed down, and I don’t have a job now. We need new jobs, new shops, look at the place. Why didn’t he spend the £5 million on Clacton?”
Hairdresser Sue Jacobson, 66, hadn’t voted either. “I used to like Nigel Farage, but I’m not sure any more,” she said, sitting in the sun with her tiny dogs Milo and Tilly. “They are all the same in the end.” Ed’s taxis’ advertised ‘lady driver’ Jean Linton, 73, seemed to have Count Binface waving from her dashboard, alongside a Lucky Cat and a New York taxi. “That’s not Binface, it’s the Tin Man,” she said indignantly. “I voted for Farage. Maybe he can do something for Clacton.”
Arriving in town via a train track lined by dusty buddleja, a world away from crypto billionaires, it was clear the celebrity Farage factor that once made an overlooked place feel a bit famous, has now turned sour for some. “It’s a circus!” one woman said, as she attempted to remove a neon inflatable ring from her son’s neck. “How would you like it?” Her friend added: “He’s made us a bloody laughing stock. Who am I supposed to vote for, an actual bin?”
In yet another surreal twist, last night saw Mr Farage triumphantly boycotting his own by-election – a vote nobody wanted except him, and which has already been boycotted by every major party. The police denied telling him not to attend. A speech Farage was due to give on Clacton Pier this morning was also cancelled. “I think it’s a disgrace he didn’t turn up to his own vote,” 24-year-old Courtland Hollis, a carer for his mum, Kelly, said. “He makes all this fuss and then spends all his time abroad anyway.”
Over the last few weeks, as their former MP battled an intergalactic space warrior dustbin, there have been moments when this seaside town has faced a total eclipse of its dignity. No wonder that thousands of constituents like Courtland didn’t vote at all. While, somehow over the summer, Britain has got used to the prospect of man versus bin, perhaps the real insult to locals was the 32 other candidates standing in the election – not just Count Binface but Baron von Thunderclap, Howling Laud Hope, Woke Trump Carrzee and Nick the Incredible Flying Brick. The town with the longest pier had produced the longest candidate list in British history and a ballot paper almost a foot long.
At the tail end of polling day, outside the ‘Spoons, I found Alan Hope – aka Howling Laud Hope, one of three candidates standing for the Monster Raving Loony party. Alan seemed impatient with the attention around Binface, reminding me this was his 38th election. “This is a special one for me, as it means I will have stood the most times for any English parliament,” he said. “I’m also now the longest-serving political leader of all time, having just overtaken Clement Attlee.” He looked longingly at the Wetherspoons. “At least I won’t come last,” he added.
As the sun set on the Pier there were bin tribute acts gathering like some kind of surreal recycling festival. Around one corner, David Ashcroft, 51 from Cornwall, had built his own R2D2 Binface, which he was touring in his camper van. Around another, Roger Hartley, from the Bureau of Silly Ideas, had two wheelie bins which he was activating by remote control under the sign ‘Bins for Good’.
Even some of Reform’s supporters seemed to have gone rogue. 80-year-old Alan Murray, a retired decorator, was protesting against the party requiring an email address. “This is a protest,” he said, simply, “against the intershit.” A big part of Mr Farage’s charm is a promise to return to a simpler yesterday when you could still smoke all over your kids. But this is probably about as peak nostalgia as you can get.
Yet at the count last night, the utter silliness of many of the candidates contrasted poignantly with the scores of local people from the borough patiently counting hour after hour, doing their civic duty with pride. Democracy at its best, and its most ridiculous, all in one gymnasium.
For all the talk about the circus enveloping Clacton, 19-year-old Max said he had enjoyed the fact the election had got people in the town talking to each other. “It’s been brilliant,” he said, “everyone has been arguing about politics, town has been really lively. It’s like the town my mum remembers. I expect that will go again now, but I hope it doesn’t.”
If Mr Farage is found guilty by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, the Clacton Circus will be back sooner than the rest of the town might like.