LoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyA man wearing a trash can on his head dances on the beach, silver cape glinting in the sun as he spins beneath a wheel-topped pier, singing “England needs a new hope” from under an enormous helmet. The scene is Clacton-on-Sea, the centre of one of the east of England’s poorest constituencies and home to around 92,000 people and now the focus of international attention over what locals and observers have dubbed a political circus. The video is part of an extremely online campaign by Count Binface, who is running to represent the Essex town in Parliament. In an ignoble first in British electoral history, he is one of 34 candidates on the ballot.
One of Britain’s most high-profile and perennial candidates, Binface has stood in six previous elections across England over the past decade (UK politicians do not have to live in a constituency in order to represent it in parliament). This Thursday, he faces Clacton incumbent Nigel Farage—leader of the right-wing anti-immigration party Reform UK and a friend of Donald Trump—in a by-election triggered by the latter’s resignation amidst allegations that he and his party accepted and failed to declare financial support, including a £5 million gift from a Thailand-based cryptocurrency tycoon. Reform did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Photograph: Isabella WardFarage maintains he has done nothing wrong and wants to recontest his seat to let voters judge his actions. Major parties, including governing Labour and the opposition Conservatives, refused to field a candidate in the contest, branding it a “gimmick” and a “circus.” When then chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves accepted Farage’s resignation, she said: “If he wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won't stop him.”
In the vacuum, campaigners have rushed to use a high-profile vote to push their own issues, from psychosexual theory to Bible messaging to white-nationalist conspiracy theories. There are also a number of novelty candidates, three from satirical party Monster Raving Loony Party alone, Nick the Incredible Flying Brick, Baron Von Thunderclap, and Howling Laud Hope, who plans to shrink hospital waiting lists by reducing the font size.
The 34-candidate list is unprecedented; the 3-foot-long ballot papers are reportedly bigger than the tables used to count them on and have proved difficult for organizers to fit into envelopes for postal votes. The parties are fighting frenziedly for voters’ attention. Rosie Morrell of the Everyone Is God party–whose policies include creating a “stable world economy” and “to map and fully comprehend the complete spectrum of human psychology and sexuality”–offers to take off her Union Jack dress so I can snap a photo of her in her matching bikini. That’s what other press have been asking for as her partner contests the by-election, she says, pink feathers dangling from her ears.
In national coverage, Count Binface has broken through. A common figure in British politics, he most recently ran against Prime Minister Andy Burnham in June and has contested several other general and London mayoral elections before. Inside the trash can is comedian and writer Jon Harvey, who has worked on satirical television shows including Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, weekly British news quiz Have I Got News for You, and iconic BBC comedy The Thick of It. With Farage’s popularity collapsing across the country, Britons nationally want a victory for Binface–who pledges to nationalize singer Adele, cap ice cream prices, and hold a referendum on whether Pluto should regain its planet status.
“We did have a giggle, and get that it’s someone just trying to make light of it,” Jaywick resident Angelina Port, who is not a Reform voter, recalls about first reading about Binface in the national press. “But we do have issues that need to be resolved,” she says, standing on the front steps of her bungalow, which has been raised on bricks to avoid flooding. It’s a common feature in the neighborhood, which was built as a summer holiday resort but ended up permanently inhabited due to bomb damage and a housing shortage in London caused by the Second World War. Ten of her neighbors have signs saying “I’m voting Reform,” staked outside. The breakfast and burger van she runs with her partner is parked in her drive.
Photograph: Betty Laura ZapataIt’s the first Tuesday of August, 82 degrees Fahrenheit (28 Celsius) by midmorning and bin day in Clacton. Garbage trucks heave down quiet cul-de-sacs and flies are buzzing as canvassers armed with leaflets for the Rejoin EU Party’s John Stevens trudge sun-baked tarmac. They are targeting former Conservative voters in the affluent neighbourhood of Holland-on-Sea. Houses with glass fronts, large balconies, and gated, manicured front drives overlook the turquoise sea lapping a sandy beach–where last month a small boat of migrants landed after crossing the English channel from continental Europe.
Once a Conservative member for European Parliament, Stevens is positioning himself as a vote against Farage and his political baby, Brexit. In recent years, national attitudes toward EU membership have shifted, with Brexit being blamed for an annual multibillion-pound hit to the British economy as growth stagnates and living costs climb.
Stevens wants to see if local attitudes have changed, believing that if even those living in Brexit heartlands—around 70 percent of Clacton voted for Brexit in 2016—believe it was a bad idea, it will send a message to Westminster. “The one policy that Farage has been advocating all his political life is widely regarded as a disaster—and that’s how you attack him,” says Stevens, who quit the Conservative party over its increasing Euroscepticism. “You don’t attack him through his money or his morals, because those simply don’t hit.”
Some houses they skip: Those with signs reading “I’m voting Reform” and showing a pointing, smirking Farage staked in the ground. Stevens has learnt from knocking on 2,500 doors so far that staunch Farage fans aren’t concerned by the £5 million. “Everybody knows that Farage is going to win this, because he’s got the place nailed down,” Stevens says.
His view is affirmed when he stops local retiree and Reform voter Jeff Brown, on his sea-view walk. Farage needs the money for security, says Brown, and who wouldn’t accept a £5 million gift? “I don’t think he should have done what he did, resigning and standing again,” he adds, but nevertheless believes Farage has been a good MP in the past couple of years and has voted for him again. Having voted for Brexit, Brown started supporting Farage two years ago when he burst back onto the political scene on Clacton Pier, impressed by the politician’s charisma and speech. Brown already held anti-immigration feelings, saying he had been “pushed” out of London by an influx of immigrants.
Photograph: Isabella WardIt’s a feeling not just Farage is trying to take advantage of. Kai Stephens, 22, is standing for the far-right British Democrats, targeting ex-Londoners living in Jaywick to push his theory that white populations in Western countries are being replaced by nonwhite immigrants. Farage was once a personal hero for 12-year-old Stephens in the run-up to the Brexit referendum and Trump’s first presidency. But since Stephens fell in with Nazi sympathizers and fascist organizations through YouTube and X, he feels that Reform’s immigration policy is too weak. As well as activists from his party, Stephens says he is being assisted in his campaign by people from Restore Britain–which did not submit a candidate for this election and instead has been appealing to Reform to coalesce. Restore did not respond to requests for comment.
Though Farage is polling on top, Irene, 81, thinks he is “ridiculous,” hasn’t done anything in his two years as MP, and finds his closeness with US president Donald Trump “frightening.” “I feel that we've been neglected, really,” she says, frustrated by the focus on Farage. “Somebody's got to stand up against him.” Wheeling her emptied trash can back from the curb, she says she will vote however she needs to to get Farage out.
To retired nurse Sally Hornby, that means voting for Count Binface—even if he “has made it a circus.” Hornby and others like his human alter-ego’s sense of humor, and are impressed by his University of Oxford education. “I would much rather the bin be our MP than Farage,” she says. “I think we just need somebody with intelligence here to actually sort things out,” she adds.
Typically a Labour voter, Hornby would have liked in the last two years to see efforts to keep businesses and shops from closing down in Clacton, as well as to clean up the area and reinvigorate the plain town square. But “I certainly don’t see any evidence whatsoever of Farage doing anything, so I just think people are just sucked into this business of immigration,” she says, adding: “He has used us in Clacton to be a stepping stone for his own power.”
Hornby and her husband Philip have come in from the suburbs to the center of Clacton town, which is steeped in Union Jack flags, in the hopes of getting a glimpse of their hero in a hastily organized hustings, when candidates debate on the campaign trail—advertised by two A4 sheets of paper stuck to a board, one with just “TOMORROW. IMMIGRATION. NOON” scrawled on. But neither he nor 32 of the other candidates, are anywhere to be seen. “Where are they?” she asks. After waiting 20 minutes, she says: “They’re not coming.”
Photograph: Isabella WardOnly the organizer, independent candidate Attieh Fard—plus her government-provided bodyguard—has turned up. This is the second day Fard has attempted to stage a hustings in the town center, trying to turn the concrete square with its metal benches into a “speaker’s corner.” There had been two of them on Monday. Count Binface told WIRED over email he was unable to attend on Tuesday and was not given sufficient notice of the events, noting he visited Clacton the following Thursday and Friday.
The focus on Farage and Count Binface means “it’s not a fair fight,” Fard says. “You can’t have a serious election,” she adds, “there’re no hustings, the media isn’t covering it well, so unfortunately people have been let down.” She says she has paid around £1,800 to make leaflets to post to every household in the constituency to make them aware of her policies on better roads and policing. A solicitor from Surrey, who unsuccessfully contested another by-election last year for the Conservative party, Fard said she decided to stand to give residents a serious alternative to Farage, after the major parties refused to contest the vote. “That’s why I’m standing: I’m saying ‘it’s not funny.’ People have sacrificed their lives for democracy,” says Fard, whose family fled Iran.
But when a woman who has been frantically pacing the square finally kicks over her hustings sign, screaming “fuck you!” at the top of her lungs to nobody in particular, that is enough even for Fard. She decides to go door-knocking in the more affluent area of Frinton, further up the coast, only for about half of the residents who open them to say they don’t intend to vote, disillusioned or calling it a “charade.” Others are pleased to see someone campaigning on local issues and hear about Fard’s parliamentary petition to reform road funding. They want someone to do something about the potholes.
If Farage wins on Thursday, as he is widely expected to, an investigation by Britain's Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards into whether the £5 million donation broke parliamentary standards will resume. As a result, there may then be a second by-election in Clacton if Farage is found guilty of breaching those standards, which the Conservatives and Restore Britain say they would contest.
For that reason, “I would argue that I have done less to create a circus than the MP who resigned,” Count Binface tells WIRED. “You can always vote for a ‘normal party’ next time,” reads one of the 53,800 leaflets he has posted to households across Clacton, just above his manifesto promise to boost the region’s fame.
