The rewards for being sane may not be very many but knowing what’s funny is one of them.
Kingsley Amis
There is perhaps something a trifle egotistical about quoting oneself in the first paragraph of a piece of writing. But around two years ago I foretold that “overseas observers of life in the UK are about to get ringside seats for a period of seriously bad juju that is about to unfold”. Well, the bad juju has arrived, and it wears a binface.
This will be a short post, and it must begin with an apology. I had intended to write a very lengthy analysis of the farrago involving Farage (please tell me I am the first person to have thought of that), but I saw something yesterday morning that I thought was simply too awful not to comment on, and had to spend what little time I had remaining to indeed comment on it. For those who have grown used to extended essays drawing on Machiavelli and Hobbes, you will, I am afraid, have to wait a little while. Today, the subject is Count Binface, and what I have taken to thinking of as regime satire.
Let’s begin with the regime, then. All societies are governed by what the American political philosopher Harvey Mansfield calls a “some” who rule over the “many”. That “some” encompasses far more than mere politicians – it is best thought of as all of those people who subscribe to and support the framework of values which sustains a particular system of rule. It is, if you like, a kind of ideological community – its constituent members do not all know each other, or agree on everything, but are united in their support for the existing way of doing things, chiefly because they benefit from it.
A good way of identifying who is in the regime is by determining who is not, and Nigel Farage performs an important semiotic function in this respect. I do not want here to defend Farage personally or his record – that is a subject for others to discuss. I do not wish to pass comment on whether he would be a good Prime Minister or is even a good MP. I do not wish to express a view on whether his decision to resign and force a by-election in his constituency is a sensible one. I mean only to describe what he symbolises.
The first thing that Farage represents is a challenge to the regime. As one of the chief, if not the chief, instigators of Brexit, he set himself against the central interest of the regime which has governed Britain from roughly 1997 onwards, namely globalisation (that regime essentially being constituted as a response to globalisation by those who stood to benefit from it). And the second thing that he represents is what the regime perceives to be the height of vulgarity: the desire to make money. Farage is the son of a stockbroker and is a former commodities trader, and continues to exhibit a desire to be rich. The Yookay regime sets its face against wealth-generation; its average member comes from money or derives his or her money from the state, and consequently it considers money-making to be grubby.
This makes Farage hated, again chiefly for his semiotic status, and one can as a good rule of thumb indeed identify a regime insider as anyone who hates him – the Venn diagram is almost a perfect circle. Plenty of people distrust him, or do not think well of him, or are neutral about him. But it is regime insiders who he really triggers, and the perfidy which they imbue into him can be startlingly conspiratorial and mean-spirited.
This is why for the past several years, as Farage has appeared to get closer to the levers of power, the stakes have got higher for the Yookay regime itself. About six months ago, Dominic Cummings made an interesting prediction in an interview: that it is “reasonably likely” that Farage would get “smashed up” before the next general election. Regime insiders, he said, were looking at the 2024 election of Donald Trump, were recalling Brexit and were also surveying the scene across Europe, and were coming to the conclusion that the mistake is allowing undesirables to take part in elections in the first place. The decision they were collectively arriving at was “let’s smash the absolute living shit out of Farage” before there is any serious voting, and Cummings suggested they would have no compunctions about fighting as dirty as possible to achieve this end – leaking tax records and medical records, bugging phones and so on.
Cummings’ prediction was persuasive at the time, partly because efforts by private actors have been underway to “smash” Farage for years already – the examples which spring to mind being the sudden closure of his Coutts bank account in 2024; the infamous milkshake attack on him in 2019; the extraordinary level of media scrutiny devoted to his financial affairs, unheard of with regard to any other politician; and the sudden appearance in late 2025 of a coterie of former school chums bearing armfuls of allegations of racist comments that Farage was purported to have made 50 years previously.
But it was also persuasive because anybody with eyes to see has been observing the British regime and noticing its increasingly Schmittian aspect for some time now. On the one hand, we have all seen how ordinary, admittedly sometimes foolish (or just unlucky or drunk), people have been treated for saying the wrong things on social media or getting caught up in protests. And we have also seen the police becoming ever more interested in enforcing sanctioned modes of thought and speech and ever more motivated by a kind of passive-aggressive contempt towards anybody who they perceive to hold undesirable views.
And on the other hand, we have seen how ratty, bitter and petulant regime insiders have become in recent years as the realisation has dawned on them that adultsintheroom-ism is dying. These people are, essentially, like a souped-up version of Veruca Salt, and it is helpful to imagine what she might be capable of having accumulated greater cunning, experience and malice in late-middle age, when she is no longer reliant on Daddy to pull the levers of power for her. They have invented an enemy in the form of populism or the ‘far-Right’; they have personified Farage as chief bogeyman in the opposition forces; and they are determined to squish him like a bug. Do not be under any illusions: these are not nice people, they do not have the national interest at heart; what they want is victory and, above all, the glee that will come from being able to dance on the graves of their opponents’ political careers (and, ideally, hopes, dreams, aspirations and personal finances).
It is with a certain level of irony, then, that the regime appears to have suddenly fixated on ‘humour’ (the scare quotes are important) as the weapon with which to demolish Farage’s political aspirations. One of the characteristics of a regime is that its behaviour can appear at times almost swarm-like: it is as though, at certain moments, the Sword of Omens suddenly sends the Eye of Thundera skyward and everybody immediately knows what to think and say. And so it is that within, it seemed, hours of Farage announcing he would stand down and force a by-election, all of the major parties announced they would not stand against him and support suddenly clustered around ‘comedy’ (again, note the scare quotes) candidate, Count Binface.
Dr David McGrogan is an Associate Professor of Law at Northumbria Law School. This is an excerpt from an article originally published on his Substack, News From Uncibal, where you can read the full piece and subscribe here.
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Why do Brits resort to baby language (count binface)when they are afraid to say what they want. Are you that scared of? Whom? Be brave, be an adult, say what you think. Once I saw the baby words in this article, I had no choice, I moved onto the next article.
Kevin Hollinrake, CON Party Chairman, is under formal investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner regarding allegations that he lobbied the Commission over his decision-making and wanted him to make partisan decisions and kick Farage out of Parliament.
Funny how the MSM isn’t talking about that: Tory Chairman being investigated by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner ….. move along, nothing to see.
https://x.com/RaheemKassam/status/2075299025532633291
Badenough showed her true colours here: Unaparty.
As is often said, if you are taking flak then you are over the target. Perhaps the ‘Regime’ which is soon to crown the Prince as PM would be better served looking at the UK’s imminent financial collapse which is likely to bring an election prior to 2029.
Burnham’s intention to raise £38 billion in extra taxes will throttle wealth creation and private employment leading to the sequestration of businesses and property when debts cannot be serviced. This is the planned communist reset. There can be no other future under this regime; it is inevitable under a policy of economic incoherence. No country can tax and borrow its way to prosperity, especially when prosperity among the little people is despised.
It saddens me that so many people I see as friends in normal life have seemingly unthinkingly adopted the establishment’s plan to demonise Nigel Farage, taking to social media to play their part in the intensive character assassination campaign. Everything from urging the people of Clacton to elect Count Binface to open criticism of Mr Farage for being “part of the establishment”, followed by a detailed catalogue of complaints about his financial affairs and stated political views.
If I were more courageous, I would argue with them and state my position, shrugging off the social isolation that would follow. Instead, I find myself self-censoring and deleting my Facebook account, leaving them to congratulate one another on being so vile. Freedom of speech has never been more under threat in centuries.
I think what this shows is that the establishment doesn’t plan or machinate as much as people often assume, but rather uses opportunistically whatever devices present themselves in order to defend and promote its power.
Which isn’t to say it doesn’t do things in a planned and deliberate way. But much of it is opportunistic. The establishment didn’t create this joke candidate in a costume but rather saw an opportunity to use him and jumped on it.
What makes these people seem so much more competent and in control than what they really are is that the power they do have does allow them to spot and use these opportunities quite effectively as and when they present themselves.
Why has Rupert Lowe decided not to stand a candidate?
He was happy to stand one on Makerfield.
I kept hearing from various YouTubers that Rupert Lowe and Restore were going to sweep Reform and Farage aside and crush the Establishment.
He says Restore will stand the next Clacton by-election.
Lowe’s YouTube groupies appear to be ethno-nationalists. I don’t believe that he’s one himself. The only way to rationalise his approach to electoral politics is that he is acting as an outrider, striving to damage Reform in order to help the Tories. It’s a shame as he appears to be a good backbench MP.
He’s done a deal with the Tories. He attacks Farage/Reform from the Right whilst the Tories maintain the fictional “centre-right” position …. ie BluLabour.
They murdered Widdecombe.
They have debanked, attacked Farage. Now targeting his family.
Reform is smeared as racist, fascist, misogynist.
Who is going to die next?
It is not that they mock dissent – they punish it with censorship, financially attacks and often – murder. The ‘regime’ is the deep state. You may remember its fascism from the Rona plandemic. You might also remember the piles of dead from LD’s, stabs and destroying society over a non existent threat.
The key phrase from the article is this:
This is the most important thing that the battalions of useful idiots that populate our country fail to understand.
It is essentially mean-girl politics. Never direct, always manipulative, snidey and pretend oh so nice. Meanwhile the most authoritarian practices are introduced and the leaders are ruthless in extinguishing their enemies. Think of any ‘initiative’ and the reasons for introducing it are always ‘safety’ or somesuch nonsense whilst in practice it’s a boot on the neck or against the interests of the British people.
Nothing to disagree with here, Farage is clearly being targeted and it’s a shame that Kemi Baddenoch is in the front line of attack. But it is notable that the establishment are increasingly being referred to as “The Regime”, not just in the UK I hasten to add. So it does appear that the UK is now widely seen as a state run by a Regime. People like Starmer and his sidekicks are prancing around the world saying that they are setting an example to other countries with their draconian policies and crazed net zero idiocies. They are truly deluded people.
I agree. It’s striking that rather than contest a seat that they won in 2019 with 72.3% of the votes cast, the tories have chosen to back a BBC scriptwriter, hoping that he will undermine Reform UK. Hardly the conduct of a serious, committed, opposition party, is it?
Yes. It does raise doubts over whether there are very many uniparty politicians that are truly committed to democracy. I’m sceptical about all of the Tories now. Many of them speak with forked tongue, I think the party is full of shills. But what is clear is they are out to silence Farage and anyone that gets in their way. It’s shame that the so called right is divided.
But it’s ironic that the BBC candidate dresses as a Bin, perhaps there is something Freudian in that their candidate is in fact garbage.
Hopefully Nigel will sort out the rubbish once and for all.
Of course Badenough is in the front line of attack. She is the current puppet of the Establishment fronting the blue faction of the Uni-Party.
Badenoch is actually a Nigerian Princess. How come she runs the English Conservative party? Collective globalism?