Should You Bet on Binface?

Surely we have now reached peak weirdness in British politics?

Politics has been crazy for about a decade now. But when friends and colleagues are asking me (with apparent seriousness) whether backing Count Binface at 7/1 to win the Clacton by-election is a good value bet, you have got to conclude that things can’t get any more surreal.

Nigel Farage has triggered the by-election in protest at an establishment campaign to destroy him. The Standards Committee are poring over his financial arrangements and were they to find against him, they could suspend him from Parliament for a sufficient period of time to allow a recall petition. If 10% of the Clacton electorate signed this, a by-election would be triggered. The Reform leader’s play is to pre-empt such a chain of events by going over the heads of those running the protracted Westminster process and appealing directly for a fresh mandate from his constituents within weeks.

Judgment day looks set to be August 6th. However, assuming Farage triumphs – which is by far the likeliest outcome, of course – this doesn’t stop the process from continuing to move against him. Potentially, we could therefore face a second by-election in Clacton in the autumn.

Farage’s gambit has run up against the tricky – and presumably unpredicted (by him) – problem that none of his opponents are willing to take to the field of play. The argument from Labour, the Conservatives, the Lib Dems, the Greens and Restore is that they will run in any by-election triggered by the ‘proper processes’ but won’t indulge Farage by participating in a contest brought about at his own discretion.

This is what has led us to the situation in which the only vaguely recognisable candidate who has announced an intention to run against Nigel Farage is Count Binface, purportedly a space warrior from the planet Sigma 9. It is fair to say that his policy platform is eclectic, ranging from nationalising the pop star Adele to building “at least one” affordable home as well as increasing the number of points awarded for a try in Rugby League (in line with inflation).

In reality, the man behind the Count Binface persona is comedian Jonathan Harvey, an Oxford University classics graduate who works for the BBC. Usually such an individual would be easy to characterise as a model example of the ‘cosmopolitan liberal elite’ but good luck trying to paint Harvey in such a light when he dresses as an intergalactic alien who wears a large bin-shaped helmet.

Farage’s mainstream political opponents are revelling in the fact that, as it stands, this is Reform’s most serious opponent. Even the typically humourless Rachel Reeves, who had to sign off on Nigel Farage’s decision to quit Parliament, couldn’t resist saying that she wasn’t minded to prevent the Reform leader indulging his apparent desire to spend the summer arguing with a bin.

The difficulty that Farage faces is not that he will lose the seat – backing Binface at 7/1 is a nice betting slip for your collection but is vanishingly unlikely to be a winning ticket – but rather that a result in which he only beats the Count by, say, a 3:1 or 4:1 ratio is going to be difficult to present as constituting a serious democratic statement about the current state of British politics.

David Davis faced a similar difficulty when he forced a by-election in 2008. He was seeking re-election on the grounds of opposing government plans to extend detention without trial, a serious and sober issue. But he found himself running against a plethora of novelty candidates including the Monster Raving Loonies, the Church of the Militant Elvis and the Miss Great Britain Party. The Greens and the English Democrats both held their deposits but Davis won with over 70% of the vote. This was a victory so predictably overwhelming against such feeble opposition that it proved little help in furthering his campaign to protect habeas corpus rights. Farage may run into the same sort of issue.

The first thing he will be hoping for is that some sort of relatively credible candidate comes forward. Someone will surely recognise that with most parties boycotting the by-election there is the opportunity for an impressive vote haul – even if not substantial enough to win – simply by being the most viable anti-Farage candidate. This might be a well-known independent or a decent candidate from a small but serious party like the SDP. It would have the effect of injecting a certain degree of sense into the contest, which would be good news for Nigel Farage, who presently risks being invited onto a Question Time special episode to square up against a man in a space suit.

Second, assuming his polling data supports my gut instinct that Reform will win by a country mile, the party should focus its campaign on a specific policy pledge. The general theme of “it’s us against the establishment” has been broadcast loudly and clearly. However, it should spell out its specific complaints about how the Standards Commission operates and how it should be changed – or whether it should be abolished. Farage might as well seek a mandate for an unambiguous proposed alteration to the law, not merely for a generalised meme. Such a detailed plan to change the way MPs’ finances are investigated (and potentially punished) need not be the headline of every – or, indeed, any – campaign leaflet, but it should feature fairly prominently and be in clear, plain black and white.

Nigel Farage will be re-elected in August and if you fancy a 16% return on your stake in just four weeks, you might find the 1/6 on a Reform victory a dull but still profitable bet. What comes next and whether Farage emerges enhanced or diminished is much harder to tell.

Mark Littlewood is a former director of the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Director of PopCon.