this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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Can’t believe that bellend won 🤦
Nigel Farage wins Clacton byelection in contest boycotted by other main parties
I mean, sucks that they won but having that many votes go to binface does sour his whole plan. This was meant to be some sort of victory lap for Farage, but now its just sad.
Good jorb!
It does sort of suck that he won, but it also doesn't really matter. It's exactly as if he'd never done the political stunt to begin with. Literally nothing has changed, he's just as much under investigation now as he was before the whole farce began.
Also they lost the Manchester mayoral vote because he wasted campaigning resources on this pointless by-election.
Who in their right mind voted for Farage!?!
He has a certain charisma to a subset of people. It's a similar effect as trump in the US, only to a smaller subset of idiots.
The things he claims don't hold up to scrutiny, but that doesn't matter to some. They just hear the surface promises, and don't think deeper.
People who are fucked by the status quo and wants something different... Erhn wait. Binface was on the ballot?
Yeah apparently 62% of Clacton just hates anything not British, so they can't vote for a spacefaring warlord
I suspect that a lot of it has to do with paid votes and/or manipulation.
It makes no sense that people ALWAYS vote against their own interests.
This is more likely.
He lost a third of his votes to a trash can from space.
I do believe that in England, you guys call that 'bloody embarrassing.'
As with most populists the best thing you can do to destroy them is to not beat them in the polls, but to make them look stupid in the court of public opinion. And he certainly been made to look stupid.
Also it's not been reported on as much because police won't give details but there's also at least two police investigations into him, eventually they'll catch up with him.
One way or the other, he's finished.
This is also a really big stepping point for independents. Almost 30% of the votes for an effective independent shows that while some people may have considered Binface a joke, it's pretty clear that his claims and asks are important to people. And those are claims and asks that other potential candidates are going to need to address if they want those voters.
So Andy Burnham is going to have to get the hand dryer in the Crown and Treaty pub moved?
If he does this he'll be a fucking legend.
Imagine the PR show if Binface, Burnham and the manager of the Crown and Treaty Pub got that done
Yeah to be fair that's a PR opportunity for Burnham. Like it or loathe it, a huge part of public favour in the UK is knowing when to engage with the bit.
No idea what you mean lol enlighten me
It's a core issue of the Binface Party.
Good point! Its an improvement over the last time binface ran I hear. Perhaps next time.
I'm glad he won, can't shake the investigation now
FWIW voter participation DID drop pretty catastrophically. Only around 44% - a drop in turnout of nearly 15%. And combined with the fact that all the other non-satirical parties skipped the election, Farage’s whole narrative of having a “mandate from his constituency” gets a fairly meaningful rug-pull. It’s obnoxious that he won, yes, but binface bested their previous record of votes received (308 - I heard the bin itself mention it in an interview a few days ago) by about 3000%.
So, yeah, the continuing source of inspiration won, but achieved almost nothing of what he originally set out to do with this political stunt.
Well I guess that is a meaningful result then despite the tiny improvement, which by the sounds of it relative to Clackton, could be considered a large improvement when you look at the finer details. Lmao at the source of inspiration bit, hilarious and apt.
My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined.
I hear yah, I’m sure count binface will return from space to replace your disappointment at a future time. 😂
He picked the place where he'd be most likely of winning. Imagine a place that's bad at voting by British standards. Now imagine the worst place.
Ohh absolutely, which I think was part of Binface’s schtick, which was a general show of how ridiculous it was for Farage to even be on the voter docket in Clackton of all places.
ELINB (Not British) why he can apparently choose what district to run in (as opposed to only being allowed to run in the one in which he lives)? Or did he move there in order to run?
On the contrary, he's rarely shown his face there, even after being elected MP. He's a shameless grifter.
As for being able to stand where you don't live, yeah, it's just a feature of the UK system that we don't require residency. There's probably a rule about you must have a registered office in the constituency, but that's about it I think.
What stops every district from ending up represented by some rich asshole from London or wherever, who doesn't give a shit about the people who live there?
They need to convince the people living there to actually vote for them. MPs areas are generally small enough that a local grass roots campaign can counter someone just pouring money in.
While the UK does have political parties, there is less blind party voting than the US seems to have.
Nothing. There are plenty of rich assholes scattered around the country so they don't generally need to, but it happens pretty regularly.
I guess the threat of people not voting for them. Most MPs will live in their constituency, or at least very near - it's only really well known figures like Farage who can get away with being parachuted in, and even then it took him about 8 goes to win a seat!
From what I've heard, it's not terribly surprising. His constituency is similar to Georgia's 14th (the one that consistently voted in Marjorie Taylor Greene). Basically British redneck boomers.
'Redneck boomers' isn't quite the right stereotype, 'gammons' would be the rough British equivalent stereotype (ie they're bright pink with Facebook-induced rage) but it's not the same thing because it doesn't really have anything to do with the rural/urban divide like rednecks in the US do, their grievances with the government are different too. A more apt comparison to the US would be the tourism version of small towns throughout the Rust Belt; ie the major industry everyone else depended on had its arse cave in due to superior foreign competition, everyone who could leave already got out years ago, and you're left with what's euphemistically called 'managed decline' but in reality is the state abandoning a place to its fate. Add in phenomena like cities dumping people with social needs they're responsible for in cash-strapped seaside towns to save money, people with social issues themselves often looking to return there due to happy childhood memories, the general economic kick in the balls these places got from the 1960s continuing indefinitely, and you can see why there's a lot of grievance there.
Believe it or not Clacton was once a fairly cool place to live, before dirt-cheap flights to Europe seaside towns tended to be pretty wealthy in the summer and Clacton in particular would have been a trendy place to be in the 1960s because of the mods and rockers, and to a lesser extent the pirate radio boom; you'd go there and listen to your transistor radios in the sun in sight of the ships with massive aerials very loudly undermining the government's stuffy monopoly on radio. The problem was (until climate change made them insufferably hot and humid anyway) British summers are generally pretty grey and rainy on a lot of days. As soon as you could get on a plane for the same cost as a train ticket and go to Spain, Portugal, Greece and so many other places, Clacton starts to look about as appealing as the seagull kebabs everyone jokes about when they're in a seaside town. I'm absolutely not defending Nigel Farage or the populist right in general, but there's a reason they stick their flag in places like Clacton in particular and in my view the left needs to reflect on why that is and improve its specific offerings to seaside towns.
A poll of the UK had Binface at 33%, Farage at 20%, and the rest either neither or other. For the same poll done in Clacton, it was 73% Farage, 20% Binface, and the rest neither or other.
Fascists are great at committing voter fraud. I do not believe for a single dime that Farage ever plays fair.
While I am sure it happens, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.
Eh hate to say it but frankly Clacton voters really are just that dumb.
Also the competition was a literal joke. Every single possible outcome is equally unbelievable
The Fox in this picture withdrew from the Clacton election because it got too silly. A man who stands in elections dressed as animals thought this election was too ridiculous.
some of the vox pop interviews I saw of randoms in the street were fucking insane. Old gammons saying with a straight face that Nigel is the only one who can "save this country". They've really gotten themselves into a bubble of shit.
Ohh I’m sure there is some validity to that statement. Guess Clackton won’t be getting one affordable home now…