Not many people thought we could win at Clacton. In the 2019 election, when Boris Johnson led the Tories, it was their fifth safest seat. Clacton voters had sent the UK’s first Ukip MP to Westminster in a 2014 by-election. Clacton’s previous electorate, Harwich, had returned a Labor MP for just two short terms in over 100 years. By any measure, when I stood for the party in 2025, it was not fertile Labor territory. On the doorstep we constantly heard “not around here mate”, and the familiar “I voted Labour. but…” And yet there we were, knocking on doors, listening to residents and presenting a counterargument to the new forces of the nationalist right.
Unlike Nigel Farage, who jumped in by helicopter the moment Rishi Sunak called a general election, I had been selected months earlier. This gave me time to get to know the constituency better. I made it my mission to reach as many people in the community as I could. I met people worried about social care for the elderly, pensioners isolated by unreliable bus services, veterans on awards outside London and publicans who, even then, barely made a profit on a pint. A middle-aged mother in Great Bentley told me how frustrated she was trying to find a school for her son. “It (the seat) just doesn’t work,” she said, “so there’s no point in voting.”
Those conversations shaped what I thought a good MP should look like. After a few months of “going local,” I came to the conclusion that doing the job properly meant truly belonging to the community I sought to represent and challenging the pervasive sense of fatalism about politics. Being an MP was not just visiting the constituency or performing for it. My role, I concluded, would be to protect their interests and be steadfast in my commitment to “the people” in line with my values, should I be fortunate enough to be elected. Having observed the last two years of a Labor government, I have been struck by how easily a bloated, technocratic style of politics can forget these basics – however much it might want to make a difference. We end up with a politics of vague words – “change”, “mission directed”, “national renewal” – all disconnected from any coherent political program.
This gives room for someone like Farage to succeed. When we opposed each other in Clacton, I saw first-hand how he defended himself as a man of “the people”. His 2024 campaign, like the next by-election, would lead the charge against an “establishment” that had failed people in Clacton and elsewhere. However, he conveniently overlooked the fact that he had unseated the existing local candidate in 2024 and imposed himself. Furthermore, his parliamentary record has shown his opposition to protecting workers and he is committed to scrapping the Equality Act, which would harm many vulnerable members of his constituency. However, his empty rhetoric has been honed for 20 years and with an effective communications team, he has been able to convince the people of Clacton to support him.
In contrast, in the Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham was judged on his record and merits. This farcical new Clacton election seems to reduce the MP’s office to something less than that. For Farage, Clacton has never been a place with its own needs, its own future, its own aspirations, as shown by his haste to associate himself with the Trump Maga project. He did not call these by-elections in response to local demand or the call of his party. It is simply a means of distracting attention from an unpleasant and inappropriate story about political donations that has begun to damage it. This is the final result of the complaints policy. It attaches itself to a place and exploits a community’s frustrations without ever offering a solution.
(Further reading: Nigel Farage is “the establishment”)
