One might think there are less humiliating things Nigel Farage could have done with himself this summer. Maybe he could have pulled out the front to quickly check something without getting the keys, so that when the door slammed behind him, he’d be trapped outside, probably in his pants. Maybe he could have used a bathroom where the door lock can’t be reached from the toilet, leaving him, mid-job, with the opposite problem. Or maybe he could have gone to a party, finally found out where he knew the person from, and enthusiastically introduced himself, only to realize that she had known all along and purposely ignored him. This can also be embarrassing. So I am told.
But these are too few for a man sometimes described as the most influential British politician of the 21st century. Not for our Nigel these small, private embarrassments. For a man who remade British politics in much the same way a huge fiery space rock remade the dinosaurs, only face-planting and his neighborhood in front of the entire planet will do.
And so, welcome to what we may soon have to describe as first Clacton by-election 2026. In the turquoise corner, a man so troubled by intrusive questions about his finances that he has set himself up for weeks without anything else. In the red corner… well, no one, actually: every other corner to which a color can be attached seems strangely deserted. Other candidates who ARE the run includes some random balls so far on the right they make Farage look like a LibDem; the more bashful Corbyn brother; ITV4’s Laurence Fox; and a man dressed as a fox who, in fact, may have the best acting career these days.
Farage’s most serious challenger, and my god did I enjoy writing that description, is that new perennial contender, the ruler of the Recyclons, Count Binface of Sigma IX – or, if you prefer the name currently used in the channel press, Count Trashhead. So desperate are Farage’s aliens to find a way to turn “don’t get lost in the bin” into a popular mandate that they are desperately trying to spread the shocking news that Binface is not, in fact, an intergalactic space warrior: he is in fact an Oxford-educated comic who also makes documentaries about Athenian democracy for BBC Radio 4. In his own way, this point is quite accurate – the people most likely to find work mocking the British establishment tend to come from within it; that’s how I got here too. But unfortunately for Farage it’s simply impossible to realize that it’s your opponent who is the leading politician when you’re wearing a suit and he’s got a bin.
Worse for the Reform leader, Binface looks like he’s having fun. Farage doesn’t look like he’s having fun. “His fellow hail, well met” the air of faux-bonhomie has long been a part of its appeal to country saloon bars. In recent weeks, however, a different sitcom character has surfaced, as the scum is wont to do: the middle-aged man so caught up in his own self-important rage that he’ll spend 20 minutes furiously listing grievances to a captive audience like Father Ted. Maybe this will resonate. A lot of people in this country are really angry these days, even if the cause is very rarely “asking polite but persistent questions about where exactly they got that money”. However, there’s a good chance it won’t happen.
Count Binface won’t win, I’m sorry to tell you. He’s unlikely to even come close, though he should have a fair shot at being the best performing rookie candidate that anyone can actually remember. However, the thing is, he doesn’t have to win. To avoid humiliation now, Nigel Farage needs to win at least the same share of the vote as he did in 2024, without the turnout collapsing or a significant portion of the opposition consolidating behind a new joke candidate, and all without generating a single viral video of him losing his cool. EITHER being asked awkward but reasonable questions about his personal financial affairs OR his main opponent is a man in a bin.
This all seems a little unlikely. An operator like Nigel Farage surely couldn’t have found his way into this mess by accident. And so we are forced to conclude: humiliation is the essence. This is what he wants.
Well, I’m not judging. I’d just prefer him to please her in private.
(Further reading: Rupert Lowe, podcast bro?)
