1) Nigel Farage is king of Clacton

The Reform UK leader won the oddest by-election in UK political history. His margin of victory was that usually secured by an Iranian hardliner – 63 per cent of the vote – rather than the full North Korean or Saddam Hussein 99 per cent. Reform will be pretty happy with that as anything over 60 per cent was going to be a very healthy margin of victory. 

The turnout also shows this was not a trick of the light. Forty-four per cent is very healthy in a by-election, particularly one which was not a contest, since it can easily fall to 25-30 per cent away from a general election. 

Farage’s team is also pleased that his total number of votes, 22,239, was 1,014 more than he secured at the general election in 2024. His majority increased from 8,405 to 12,784. We can safely conclude that the vast majority of the people of Clacton have looked at the furore around Farage’s finances – and the political class dismissing this by-election as a farce – and said to themselves: ‘I don’t care. Nigel is our guy.’

2) A recall vote will fail

No sooner had Farage been crowned victor than the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards announced he was reopening the investigation into whether the Reform leader had broken the rules by failing to declare a £5 million ‘gift’ from crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne. Reform insists Farage was not a politician when the money was handed over, though Gabriel Pogrund of the Sunday Times has showed that he was privately plotting a return.

It seems probable that the commissioner finds against Farage. He seems to think so himself, having said he ‘maybe’ neglected to ‘fill in a piece of paper’ about the five big ones. It seems more than possible that Farage will be given a ban of ten days or more from the Commons, the threshold which opens the way for a recall vote. But even then it is not an absolute banker that there would be such a vote – 10,000 signatures are needed to trigger one. I would expect the 9,455 Count Binface voters, plus a few hundred others, to coalesce in order to........

© The Spectator