The Reform UK leader has secured his Clacton seat after gambling his political career on a by-election
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has won back his seat in parliament, in a by-election boycotted by every other major British party. Farage vacated his seat and triggered the election in an effort to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”
Farage was declared the winner in his Clacton constituency on Thursday, with the Reform leader taking 63% of the vote, a 17% increase from 2024.
However, Farage’s only opponents this year were novelty and fringe candidates, with the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Greens boycotting the election. Out of these candidates, Count Binface, a BBC comedian whose costume includes a bin on his head, won 27% of the vote.
The boycott was a calculated move by the UK’s establishment parties aimed at delegitimizing the election. Farage vacated his seat in July in an attempt to win it back with a larger majority than in 2024, an outcome that would have humiliated his opponents in the mainstream parties. In a statement at the time, he described the election as a chance for voters to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”
While Farage was denied the opportunity to defeat Labour and the Conservatives for the second time in two years, he still portrayed his win on Thursday as a “victory against the establishment.”
“I called this by-election because I wanted the people of Clacton to be my judge, not the mainstream media in Britain, and the political establishment who paint us as criminals,” he told supporters after results were announced. “We have beaten the candidate for the uniparty.”
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