We spoke earlier to local chancer Elliot Plunge who told us "this is the one thing we did not want to happen"

Like it gets moved to in the urinal itself? Indeed, that could kick off a world war.

Indeed which is why "taking back sovereignty" as an argument by the pro-Brexit folks was a bit disingenuous (if I'm been kind).

It would also require us leaving a whole bunch of international treaties though since "Nationalising a pop singer" kinda breaches a few of them.

(Obviously the MP for Clacton has the power to talk sturnly to someone with actual power in the councel over the bin collection schedule; the is no plausable way to deliver any of their pledges)

What is 50c/o? That “℅” is not a percent sign.

Typically, the government takes over a company.

The shareholders or owners may or may not receive compensation.

Presumably a normal(?) interpretation would be that the British government uses whatever eminent domain law it has and it takes over Adels copyright on all her songs and gives her whatever the fair market value of the catalog is.

But because this is a joke candidate, could be anything.

A joke on the goverment nationalising the railways and the debate around whether we should nationalise water companies.

Take into public ownership.

"Nationalize Queen" might have been more confusing...

It still works; he's one of the most lucrative dead artist!

I kind of miss teletext. It was by far the fastest way to get a quick weather forecast.

aye, i've always thought tying an MP wages to the national average was a good call. but nurses makes sense too.

> basically trying to distract from his dodgy dealings with crypto bros and convicted fraudsters.

No, so he can say that the voters have spoken and that they don't care.

It seems to be that it's common belief in right wing parties that winning an election means all cases against you are dropped. They aren't, unless you get elected president of the US. But I think that's where they're all getting it from.

Here in Brazil we once had an actual clown on a representative election, with a slogan that translates to "I literally can't make it worse!" (but was a pun in Portuguese.)

He was the most voted candidate, and is now a professional politician. He failed to make good on his slogan...

Don't forget about the California recall that put Arnold in charge. There were pornstars and all sorts absurdist candidates due to the nature of how the recall works. More recently, you had some ex-reality TV personality running for mayor of LA.

They don't decide on a recall. They can sanction an MP, such as suspension from the House of Commons.

Instead, a recall petition - requiring 10% of an MP's constituents to sign to then recall - is automatically triggered when an MP is suspended for 10 or more days.

Farage won an election in which no other major party participated.

The standards committee doesn't make decisions based on what they think is best. They make decisions based on the rules.

I don't think the committee will be swayed by this stunt at all, especially since Farage has essentially admitted that he started all this to make them look silly.

And they are highly likely to open another investigation into the Posh George stuff.

Unless the other major parties show up for the next by election.

You do know the other major parties didn't run a candidate right? The point was to demonstrate that this byelection was just theatrics by Farage to distract from the ethics investigation into the 5 million pounds. I think some, and maybe Farage himself, seem to think that the byelection wipes the slate clean either actually or practically because the people of Clacton have "spoken". it does neither.

The lesson people should learn from Farage and Reform (which they won't, let's be real) is that the entire Brexit movement and all the subsequent European alt-right movements are incredibly astroturfed. They're the product of wealthy people funding fascism to avoid the electorate talking about economics ie why they're increasingly poorer and why there's increasing wealth and income inequality. Reform wants to direct attention to immigrants. It's pure distraction.

It's the exact same thing in the US. It's immigration here too but it's all the other culture war bullshit issues like trans people too.

What fomented all of this in the UK is that the UK government decided to bail out the banks after 2008 at the expense of taxpayers and then that was used to justify a decade of austerity measures that crippled the economy and wiped out the working class.

It didn't have to be that way. Other countries like Iceland [1] let the banks fail and their economies massively benefitted.

[1]: https://www.worldfinance.com/special-reports/failing-banks-w...

He's clearly getting his £500's worth even when he was losing it. I wouldn't worry too much about it.

No, anybody can't donate to a political party in the UK:

  Political parties are responsible for checking the source of loans and donations over the value of £500 to ensure they come from permissible sources.

  Foreign companies and individuals who are not on the UK electoral register cannot make political donations.

Other countries likely have similar restrictions e.g. New Zealand disallows foreign donations, and the source of larger donations much be known although I'm not sure if public (i.e. no anonymity above $X). Two digit millions is a significant amount in NZ politics.

Well, you linked to his registration entry but that's not donations. In fact he doesn't have any donations so maybe that's why you were confused. If you look for a political entity which does have donations, like Reform, you can see £50M over the years since it was formed (then as the "Brexit Party")

And it's not true that "anybody" can donate. People can donate if they'd be allowed to vote in the UK, which currently includes people who don't live here and so don't care what happens but that might change to some extent. Non-people such as businesses can donate if they are legitimate UK entities with UK registration or whatever as appropriate (so e.g. a UK business you own for no purpose but to fuck with UK politics wouldn't fly, but if you've got a money-losing Californian Wine Importer that's a fun hobby you can make that loss $5000 bigger by having them them donate $5000 to Reform if you like)

Not quite. The problem is that rich people can find ways around the laws.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/political-registratio...

Kein Mehrheit Für Die Mitleid

And if the standards committee sees fit he will be doing it again soon.

Democracies can be arranged in some majoritarian, concensus-based, or any other way that a group of peers can use to decide on something collectively. “Ha ha wolves and sheep voting for what’s for dinner.” Find another quip.

Such is especially the power of first-past-the-post.

I saw a Sankey diagram from exit polls that showed that lots of Conservatives voted for Farage, but some Reform voted for Binface. Can't find it again though because Twitter sucks.

You want attention and an mp who cares and delivers then vote for Binface.

Farage has barely been in Clacton for the last 2 years.

(ETA: I see you edited your post to clarify — I will leave mine because there is significant nuance about the constituency)

Not really. Clacton itself certainly wasn't; it has its problems for sure but other seaside towns do, and the corner of Clacton that is closest to Brightlingsea is I think fairly well off?

The constituency also includes Frinton-on-Sea, which is really quite affluent as east coastal towns go and fairly affluent on a national scale — a whole bunch of properties over a million quid, and Walton-on-the-Naze, which is a nice place, a bit more modestly expensive than Clacton.

The constituency does include a place that is often considered the most deprived place in the UK — the coastal village of Jaywick which is essentially a holiday resort village that collapsed.

Quite a lot of the people of Jaywick resent the allegation, as it goes. It certainly is more functionally deprived than most places in the UK though, as you have a lot of people living in what were basically beach huts in a holiday park.

And you can be absolutely certain that Farage does not give a damn about Jaywick. His entire argument, essentially, is that he, being Nigel Farage and occasionally even being Nigel Farage in Clacton, is good for Jaywick because it raises Clacton's profile. Locals evidently do not think he has done a thing, and regeneration would be a council effort anyway.

Interestingly these regions have been getting a lot more investment from central government in recent years. It hasn’t appeared to make any difference to people’s voting patterns.

Jaywick is possibly the area in the UK most dependent on benefits handouts.

Good luck with the guy who wants to slash your benefits, people.

If you want to see how exactly a Westminster Parliament would stop duly elected MPs who did not follow the rules, look at the 2022 controversy about the Parti Québécois MPs who refused to pledge allegiance to the monarch. They were physically stopped by the sergeant-at-arms.

I think there is some rule about not wearing hats that block the view of others or something. From the era of top hats and all that which aren'tthat far removed from the bin.

Your last paragraph answers your second imo. The other parties want to highlight that the election was held with the outcome already practically decided. By not participating they are harming the "people vs. the establishment" narrative Farage is trying to spin

It costs money to campaign, it's not a seat any other party had a chance to win and it sends a clear message from the other parties that the whole stunt was a waste of everyone's time.

How are you confused? Given your US example, the only smart play for the Dems would be exactly what happened here. Sure, you could field a candidate and maybe win, but probably not and then you've lent legitimacy to his stunt. Or you could just let Trump run against Bozo the clown, and while Trump would most definitely still win, he would be made to look ridiculous.

I think there's a few things going on that make it a bit different.

Firstly, Farage picked this constituency to run in because it's deeply favourable to him. This is quite common for leaders of parties — if you can't even get your top guy to win an election, how are you going to convince other people to do the same? In the previous election, he ended up with 46% of the vote, so assuming the same people vote for him again, you'd need almost all the other votes to go to a single alternative candidate to beat him — that's very unlikely. So there's not much value in running to beat him.

Secondly, Farage was always trying to sell this as a people vs the establishment election, so it wasn't really in the interests of any of the other parties to indulge him in that. Either it's a resounding victory against the establishment, or another example of the establishment using its power to beat up the little man. (Ignore the reality that Farage is fundamentally part of the establishment — the question is more how Farage would attempt to sell the result.) So even if you take the approach that the big national parties ought to be able to field a candidate in every election, even if they aren't going to win, there's not much value there either because the result will be used against you.

Thirdly, the stakes aren't so large as if this were a vote on the President. Farage is the leader of his party, yes, but right now it's a fairly minor protest party, with only 8/650 seats in the House of Commons. They take up a lot of column inches, but in terms of actual power, right now they're not that important. Gaining that one seat in the Commons isn't so big a deal to the day-to-day running of the country — Labour would continue to have a sizeable majority and control the Government, no matter who won it. So there's no question of "who should run the country" here, it's essentially just a performance to the media and the people.

Fourthly, beating Farage here stops the disciplinary processes from happening, and those are probably going to be more damaging to Farage overall than him losing this one election. As long as he's an MP, he will need to deal with the fact that he failed to declare this particular donation, which means it's kind of in the interests of the other parties to let him stay as MP and hopefully face the music. In practice, the punishment will probably not affect him very meaningfully, but the rigmarole of going through the process itself and having his bribe and associations with crypto billionaires repeated constantly in the media will probably be more impactful.

And fifthly, this is kind of just an optional extra election that Farage has called. If the investigation finds fault (likely) and recommends a long enough suspension (more uncertain), then the people of Clacton can choose to recall Farage anyway, at which point there will be a "real" by-election. I've no idea whether that will happen, whether the people in Clacton will really want that to happen, or whether the other parties will abstain again, but I think because this was an election triggered exclusively by Farage for his own benefit, there is this perception that the election never really counted any way.

You can get a lot of stalemate when the majority agrees that there is a problem, and often even what the problem is, but they can't agree on what the solution is. I think that's the situation in a lot of Western European countries right now — there's a broad dissatisfaction in governments, but there's isn't really a clear mobilisation towards any one solution because nobody can agree what the solution should be. That's why you see very low approval ratings for a lot of European governments, but you also don't see any single party capitalising on that. Even Labour's success in the UK was mainly the collapse of the Conservatives rather than a clear vote of confidence in Labour.

I partly agree with this but I don't think it addresses the root cause sufficiently. And that is (IMHO) the hoarding of land.

What the UK actually needs to do is land reform. All these duchies (etc) need to be dissolved and returned to the state. Next, the UK needs to build significant stock in social housing, much like Vienna did a century ago. That would be through a combination of building new housing stock and buying existing stock. Part of doing that would be by popping the buy-to-let economy, which is the only thing the UK produces now. And that's political suicide because more than half of the voters are deeply committed to ever-increasing housing prcies.

The first 5 PMs on your list were just Conservative shills for the billionaire class and the aristocracy. They were astroturfed by those same interests that drove Brexit. It's just theft from the British taxpayer on a massive scale.

The real reason this was allowed to happen can be blamed on Tony Blair. Just like Bill Clinton in the US, there was this disastrous wave of so-called Third Way noeliberalism that abandoned the working class and just becamse Conservative Lites. Labor ceased to represent the working class in the 1990s as a result.

We had a brief bright spot with Jeremy Corbyn but this brings us to Keir Starmer. He was part of a political hit on Corbyn, in big part because Corbyn was anti-Israel. Starmer got fewer votes than Corbyn did in either of his elections. All that happened was that the right-wing vote was split between Conservative and Reform. That mistake won't happen again. The Conservatives have effectively been wiped out since. This is a consequence of first-past-the-post.

So Starmer was just a tool of the same establishment that backed the previous 5 PMs who was there to maintain the status quo.

Burnham is still an open question but I'm not super hopeful.

It is my understanding that they didn't in fact "Just build more" so how would they know it was or wasn't working?

>People understand instinctively that "just building more" is not working and never will.

Wait. Why? Do they?

If the problem is the lack of housing. Why wouldn't building more be a solution?

Or are you refering that the phrase itself is dismissive of existing issues?

I agree. Which is a problem, considering that it absolutely would work if only they actually did it.

but isn't the story that they did build more?

* Right - Conservatives

* Hard right - Reform

* Far right - Restore

Restore are a far right party. Luckily they get about the same number of votes as the old far right parties, like the BNP.

Xenophobia is a tool of demagogues, not a rational policy.

So while it's an issue, it's not even in the top ten of of the UK's most important practical issues.

And the racism it generates - including Brexit, and currently the collapse of income from foreign students, which was a huge earner for the university sector - does huge and lasting harm.

It's a political shiny penny used for distraction, not a realistic solution to anything. And the people who make careers out of promoting it are provably cynical, corrupt, incompetent, and disinterested in solving real problems.

Labour pivoted way to the right on immigration and it didn't get them any more votes. There's nothing they can do to get that part of the electorate and it's a waste of time to try to cater to them.

> Immigration is a serious and key issue, which impacts everything else, too.

No, other things are serious and key issues, and immigration is the scapegoat that gives people someone to blame for their problems, distracting from actual solutions that don't fit in a one-sentence slogan the way the non-solution "kick out all the Xes" does. This has been an electoral tactic of right-wing populists for a long, long time.

But that doesn't bring down the PM personally.

The last VONC to pass was in 1979, and Callaghan continued to lead Labour (albeit to defeat) in the General Election.

Parliament can also impeach ministers. It hasn't bothered trying for about 180 years because a vote of no confidence is simpler, but it hasn't given up the power (and it's hard to argue that it's somehow fallen into abeyance through lack of use, as there's precedent for a gap of a couple of centuries between impeachments).

I have no opinion on the man at all, but rather, what politician doesn't participate in stagecraft?

But... it didn't. It essentially destroyed the Tories, and did Labour no favours either. That's why there were all those PMs.

Still unclear what your point was. There was nothing politically unifying about Brexit. Individual politicians weren’t even consistent in their support or opposition to it. The closest we have to a unifier now is centrist and Left politicians degrading themselves in ever more desperate attempts to vilify immigrants and trans people in an attempt to placate the Right (which as yet hasn’t unified anybody, to everyone’s surprise).

Privacy concerns have pretty broad opposition in the UK, unfortunately.

Your single-issue concerns are valid, but most people view an executive office's performance as a holistic union of their stances on issues.

And what are you reading and listening to? It's the fifth-largest economy on Earth. Considering the ridiculous self-harm incident that was Brexit, that's not exactly a bad position to be in. The rest is governance (and debt payments).

What happened in 2014? Nothing of note. Quality of Life for most people is how much free cash they have at the end of the month to enjoy life (the UK has low crime, good employee protections, decent education system, universal healthcare, childcare provision and pretty good public services, therefore QoL is mostly about spare cash). So, what has reduced the cash in the pocket? Increased property values up to around 2020. They've been steadily reducing since (in real terms). Inflation: post Global Financial Crisis, the UK government was quantative easing, trying to inflate their debts away, which reduces the value of everybody's wage. Then the oil spike because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And then there's the debt, which reduces government spending (GFC again and Covid).

And finally, Brexit, knocking 6% off GDP.

So, yeah, that's reduced the spare cash for many, which increases the stress for many. But it's also not really a UK problem (other than Brexit, which could have been avoided). I'm sure the decade after the Great Depression was tough for many too. But I'd definitely argue that the UK is not really in a bad position. It's a grown up country, with grown up institutions, life isn't bad in the UK. It only appears bad if you live online.

I spent my 20s in late 1990s and early 2000s London. It was fucking awesome. I wasn't earning much at all (£19,000) when I first moved, but I lived in Highgate and was out every night of the week, enjoying life in London. The main difference I see between then and now: cost of housing, UK debt levels, and the UK was in the EU. To 'fix' the current issues, it seems we need:

* To build many more houses. It could do this by starting a government funded house builder. It is clear the main house-builders are sitting on land banks and not building enough housing. So we should start our own and use compulsory purchase to acquire land-banks for building. The additional supply should help reduce house prices over time. It could also go along with a massive trades apprenticeship programme, improving employment, and reducing the astronomical costs of getting anything built.

* Ban foreign ownership of residential property and all companies that own residential property must be based in the UK. With all taxes from companies holding residential property to go directly to government funded house building.

* Rent pricing control: yearly rent rises to be capped by inflation. So, over time this will start to feel a bit better for the average renter and they have more confidence in future costs.

* Pay down the UK debt as quickly as possible. This is harder to solve when there's no spare cash in the coffers. My suggestion: rejoin the EU and use the 6% of additional GDP to pay down the national debt to more manageable levels as quickly as possible.

* There's a political debate over mining the remaining oil in the North Sea. In reality it won't be economically realistic in about 12 years. So, put all North Sea oil revenues into a Sovereign Wealth Fund asap.

* Transition to a fully renewable/nuclear grid asap. The price of energy is too high and the quicker we get there the better, even if there's some short-term pain. We have got to stop being in-hoc to the whims of megalomaniacs like Putin and Trump.

We, of course, don't have the post-USSR peace dividend. And the electorate will still have their minds poisoned daily by the beloved free-speech platforms of America. So, it won't be exactly the same as the 90s, but people would be in a better position to enjoy life more.

Still, on the whole, I think it's over-egged. Life is more difficult than it was in the 90s, but the country is still better than most in many regards.

He's said multiple times that the point is to celebrate democracy itself. I highly doubt his goal has ever been a political position of power.

This is the first time he's passed 5% of the vote and he was the only other candidate on the ballot. It seems quite clear cut that these are protest votes.

All that being said, purely off of vibes, I agree with the parent comment saying he would probably not misuse his power if he were to get it, which I think is already good enough in terms of "having no idea what he would actually do".

You're just trying to equate humour to populism, but I'm not buying it. You're doing it so much that you inadvertently are giving his direct opposition - Nigel Farage, an actual extreme populist - a pass, just because he's wearing a suit and tie.

Your comparisons are distasteful and strike me as someone who doesn't really know the man, and just tosses out preconceived notions at him. His messaging doesn't have any undertones of "look how much I'm better and superior than the bureaucrats, I'm just like you guys!". Frankly I'd say he's less like the average person than an average politician. Neither is his humour cheap, nothing like shrieking for 6 year olds that you automatically accuse him of.

He presents himself this way because it's what he's good at. He's a highly educated comedy and satire writer. Also, he runs as a single candidate and probably doesn't really expect to win - but he does take the political system seriously and wants people to be engaged with it.

Humor has always been with us. I don't see what makes it so horrible. If a story can drive a point through it, why can't political messaging? Why is making pertinant jokes about the current situation worse than reading bullet points off a list regardless of the argument being made?

Populism would imply catering to popular demands. This is just aesthetic bullshit—far closer to liberalism/maga than populism. The interesting part is that they don't even try to be taken seriously.

The BBC has had Nigel Farage on constantly. He is one of the most frequent guests on BBC Questiontime, their flagship political programme for at least fifteen years. He is partly of their creation.

Wait, so you are saying that Farage did not receive an undisclosed £5 million personal gift from a cryptocurrency billionaire? Or he did, but any reporting on it is obviously the deep state ganging up on him?

Uh, so you Brits have this kind of chaps too?

Which is... quite weird, really, because the former opt-outs were mostly fairly minor. I assume they'd be allowed stay out of Schengen in practice; Ireland's not in it and they have an essentially un-closeable border with Ireland (this is, incidentally, the main reason Ireland's not in Schengen in the first place). And realistically the EU has shown no appetite for dragging countries who don't want it into the eurozone; see Poland.

The Economist wrote a few articles on the topic, e.g. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2025/12/30/britain-and-the...

> I'm not sure if the EU would really go along with it again.

Sounds like Project Fear to me! The EU needs Britain more than Britain needs them! The German car/French wine/etc. industry will beg the European Commission to give Britain all their opt-outs back to secure a rejoin!

In the meantime…meet our next “PM of the month”!

I voted Remain, and hoped the EU would get its house in order if the UK stayed in it. Unfortunately neither of these things happened. Both the EU and the UK have become increasingly authoritarian, including on internet matters.

They will run for the next election in a few months - the investigation has just resumed.

Farage engineered this situation to try to take control of the narrative about the investigation into £5m of undeclared income/gifts.

They neutered that move by not entering the contest in the first place. And Binface (with support of 32 other candidates) turned it into a humiliating exercise.

A "serious" by-election is what Farage wanted. You don't protest by playing along. You protest by doing your best to express how much of a farce it is.

Farage can't say "The people want me more than your other serious candidates even after this controversy" if there are no serious candidates running.

They plan to eject Farage from Parliament after their investigation concludes. Farage was trying to delay the investigation, or perhaps prove a point that his voters don't care.

Let’s be real. John Oliver‘s sketch writer under neath that costume is probably not really enjoying the scenario of actually running as an opposition candidate against Farage in a nationwide MP race. He could probably win, but really who’s the joke on then?

Realistically he was hoping to put Farage to shame, for which he didn’t even have to win. But this result wasn’t that. A bit of nice PR but essentially a debacle for the other nationwide parties, because that was all they could come up with.

Prediction: Farage has good chances of becoming the/a future pm

Yeah but that is a boat name, I don't think I've ever heard of a joke candidate in an election even do as close to as well as this against a high profile opponent.

No, he was either going to lose to a bin or get back in the commons and have the investigation continue. Now it will continue. So no, playing along at his stupid games is what would normalise it. They will run at the next election in a few months.

More votes in an absolute sense but nowhere near as large as a proportion — he got 24000 votes when he stood for London Mayor but that is a tiny, tiny proportion of the vote — the two leading candidates between them got two million.

So he has never, until now, kept his deposit. This win was large and it is politically significant.

OK so:

- it won't stop the investigation, which has restarted

- it won't stop the investigation triggering a recall petition if the findings are serious enough

- the recall petition needs 10% of the electorate to sign it to trigger a recall

- if it gets ten per cent of the electorate, Farage loses his seat and has to fight another election

- Count Binface got more than 12% of the electorate to vote for him, many of whom, perhaps the majority, will have voted for him in person (because it's effing hilarious)

- So if the standards commission finds Farage broke the rules in a way significant enough to trigger a recall petition, it seems likely Farage will lose his seat

- And then have to fight it again, this time against other candidates

- There are surely going to be more stories that come out about exactly how Posh George's money reached the party (which is the second investigation that will almost certainly start)

It was a given that Farage was going to win the by-election. The major parties didn't even run candidates, since they all agreed it was a farce. The goal wasn't to beat him, it was to not let him control the narrative of the whole thing.

Believe it or not, the BBC has published multiple articles about the by-election, and most of them mention Farage's win in the headline.

This is facetious and silly.

He was always going to win this election. Nobody practically-minded ever thought Binface winning was anything more than technically possible.

What is your understanding about why the election happened?

Hey, he made his £87.