Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Tens of thousands of voters in the UK are voting on Thursday in a special election in Clacton, a seaside town outside London, in a contest that has drawn unusual attention because Nigel Farage is facing a field of independents, joke candidates and single-issue campaigners rather than rivals from the main political parties.
Farage, who leads the anti-immigration Reform UK party and was elected to Parliament from the strongly Brexit-backing town in 2024 at his eighth attempt, triggered the election by quitting his Commons seat last month. He had expected to contest a “people versus the establishment” battle against candidates from the governing Labour Party and the main opposition Conservatives, but both parties decided not to stand.
advertisement
Instead, Farage’s best-known opponent is Count Binface, a political satirist who appears as a comic space alien and campaigns on issues including the positioning of a hand dryer in the men’s toilet in a pub in west London. In all, a record 34 candidates are standing in Clacton, including Howling Laud Hope of The Official Monster Raving Loony Party and Marcus White of the Everyone is God Party. Around 80,000 voters are eligible to vote, and the ballot paper is about 3 feet, or around 1 metre, long.
Turnout is expected to be low for several reasons. Special elections usually attract fewer voters than general elections. In the July 2024 general election, when Farage faced eight rivals, he won 21,225 votes, or 46.2 per cent of the total, on a turnout of 58.7 per cent. This vote is also being held during the summer holidays, when many voters are away from Clacton, and during another UK heatwave, with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius likely to keep some people away from polling stations.
Farage said he stood down to let voters judge him as he faces what he considers unfair scrutiny of his finances. Parliament’s standards watchdog is investigating an undeclared donation of 5 million pounds from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire, in 2024. Farage has said he did not need to declare the money because it was a personal gift used to fund his security and was received before he was elected. Newly elected lawmakers must declare gifts worth more than 300 pounds received in the previous year if they are linked to political activities.
When he resigned on July 7, Farage called the scrutiny an “establishment hit job” and a media-driven “witch-hunt”. His decision to leave Parliament paused the investigation, but if he wins on Thursday, as most pollsters expect, it is due to restart. If he is found to have broken Parliament’s rules, he could face a recall petition in Clacton, which may trigger another special election later this year and cost the British taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds more. In that contest, unlike this one, the other parties would be expected to stand.
Farage’s move came weeks after Andy Burnham returned to Parliament in a special election in Makerfield near Manchester. That campaign gave Burnham a positive spotlight and set off events that led to him becoming Britain’s prime minister a few weeks later after Keir Starmer resigned. Any hope Farage had for a similarly positive campaign in Clacton faded when the main parties stayed out, leaving him to run against candidates such as Count Binface.
Count Binface is the stage creation of comedian Jon Harvey, who has previously contested high-profile elections against former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. He says his repeated candidacies are meant to highlight the strengths of Britain’s centuries-old democracy, where even the biggest politicians are above no one, including someone from his fictional home planet of Sigma IX. Candidates must pay a 500-pound deposit and only get it back if they win 5 per cent of the vote. In Makerfield, Harvey won 95 votes, or 0.2 per cent, but there is an expectation that he will do better in Clacton as some supporters of other parties back him in the hope of embarrassing Farage. The result is expected on Friday morning between 5 am and 7 am, with Farage due to be on stage alongside the other candidates when it is announced.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
