16.07.2026

Nigel Farage and rule 5

The mainstream media is bigging up a candidate dressed as a bin. But the only way to really see off the threat from Nigel Farage and the far right is by fighting for independent working class politics, argues Eddie Ford

Various people have said that the reason Nigel Farage triggered a by-election in Clacton was to knock down Rupert Lowe’s Restore Party and confirm him as the dominant figure on the right - either that or he wanted to steal the headlines from Andy Burnham, who will, of course, shortly become prime minister.

But it is crystal-clear that he is not doing it for any of those reasons. Rather, he is under investigation from Daniel Greenberg, the parliamentary commissioner for standards - a post first established in 1995 to investigate the ‘cash-for-questions’ affair.¹ Farage has been charged with breaking rule 5 of the code of conduct. This requires that new MPs “must register all their current financial interests, and any registrable benefits (other than earnings) received in the 12 months before their election within one month of their election”.

Initially, this investigation began by examining a £5 million payment from the Thai-based cryptocurrency investor, Christopher Harborne, that did not appear on Farage’s declaration of interests - only becoming public knowledge after first being reported in April by The Guardian. This prompted the Conservative Party to write to the parliamentary standards watchdog, making an official complaint.

We all know the story, of course. Farage first said that it was a purely private donation intended to cover his personal security costs, and therefore did not need to be declared. In May, however, his line changed, when he said in an interview that it was a “reward” for campaigning for Brexit for 27 years. He bought a £1.4 million Georgian property in central London shortly after receiving Harborne’s donation - just a coincidence, of course! This house was one of at least five owned by Farage, whose partner owns another property that he uses in his Clacton constituency.² Then in June the story shifted again: he had received an “unconditional gift” that he could use however he wanted - telling LBC Radio: “I can spend it on Ferraris if I want” or “put it on the horses”, but anyway it is “not any of your business”.³ What happened to the security costs, Nigel?

On top of that, we have George Cotterill’s £80,000 loan, but, of course, Posh George comes from a “good” aristocratic family, according to Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice. His grandfather was the third Baron Manton, who inherited a “family soap empire” and his mother was a former girlfriend of King Charles.⁴ She also donated £500,000 to Reform in September 2024, and Farage is now being investigated for that too.⁵ Furthermore, he is also being investigated for allegations of lobbying the governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, to loosen regulations around cryptocurrency - Bailey saying he can spot someone who is up to that trick a mile off - and the non-declaration of several houses that are part of his £4 million “property empire”.⁶ Additionally, if that was not enough, it was reported that the Harborne “gift” has been forwarded to the National Crime Agency by bankers under the anti-money-laundering Suspicious Activity Report scheme.⁷ Other donations to Reform UK have also been flagged under the scheme.

Spivs

Therefore Nigel Farage decided to pre-empt the investigation - or attempt to derail it - by triggering a by-election with the polling date on August 13. Of course, as widely commented upon, if Daniel Greenberg’s investigations resulted in Farage being suspended from parliament for more than 10 sitting days (or 14 calendar days), it would open up the possibility of a recall petition, forcing another by-election - this time at a date not of Farage’s choosing. Equally, when he wins the contest - barring a miraculous set of circumstances, since, of course, all the other major parties decided to boycott his stunt (see below) - the parliamentary standards committee investigation would just restart. It could possibly restart even if the miracle happens and Farage loses to one of the improbable candidates standing in Clacton.

Anyhow, Farage describes the by-election as a “people versus the establishment” contest and a “real election with real people”. Reform actually offered to pay for the costs of the by-election, estimated at around £200,000 (offer refused).

It does have to be said that Farage is hardly a horny-handed son of toil, a former City trader who recently got £270,000 for promoting gold bullion - amounting to an estimated four hours per month across a three-month period.⁸ Tough work, but someone’s got to do it!

But, more than that, if you look at the people who have donated to him, then you are dealing with the spiv side of capitalism - cryptocurrency and so on. George Cotterill, for example, is a convicted fraudster, who has spent time in prison and is now seeking a pardon from Donald Trump. Believe it or not, he had a book published this year actually called How to launder money.⁹ This gives you some idea as to the sort of capitalists we are dealing with: they are not producing anything or organising labour power. Essentially, we are talking about speculators.

Having said that, we need to recognise that Farage is not just a spokesperson for spiv capitalism. He has also made himself into the champion of a real section of the population that resents liberalism and ‘political correctness’ (or ‘woke politics’). They resent the fact that, however many politicians promise to make their lives better, they do not get any better. Meaning it is not shocking that Reform UK is still in the lead, when it comes to opinion polls. Of course, the key to Farage’s undeniable success is not just bashing ‘wokeness’ - it is called migrants. The wrong sort of people for Nigel and his base that come with dark skins and, in particular, are Muslims. They are the central target and perhaps the major explanation of Farage’s popularity, and the popularity of Reform - and his various other outfits before that.

Fringe

So, we come to last week’s Socialist Worker editorial and front page proclaiming “kick out the far-right fraudster”.¹⁰ There can be no doubt that Farage is far-right and corrupt. But let us not forget the Tories. They are far-right by any reasonable measure. What about corruption? The fact of the matter is that all mainstream political parties are corrupt. Some of it is overt, some of it is petty. But the relationship between the mainstream political parties and the institutional architecture of power is one of systematic corruption. After all, Tony Blair’s ability to amass a £45 million fortune since leaving office in 2007 is not due to his ready smile.

Then there is the question of kicking out Farage. That can only happen if some other candidate gets more votes than him on August 13. So who does Socialist Worker recommend? As of July 15, there were nine named opponents - all of whom you would call fringe candidates.¹¹ Of course, the one that tops the list and is featured in almost every headline from the mainstream media is Count Binface - AKA the comedian and Oxford graduate Jon Harvy - who stood in Makerfield against Andy Burnham.¹²

At the moment, Binface appears to be the main ‘challenger’ to Farage, as all the mainstream or ‘serious’ parties (Labour, Tories, Greens, Liberal Democrats) quickly announced a boycott - even Restore Britain declined to participate in a “Reform-sponsored media circus”. Farage himself claimed to be surprised at the other parties’ decision not to field candidates, which he described as “showing contempt” towards the electorate. Presumably regarding it as a bit of fun, 33% of the 1,000 British people questioned in a nationwide poll conducted by Ipsos wanted Count Binface to win the by-election, as opposed to the 21% who said Nigel Farage.¹³ This shows the power of the media to frame the story: the idea is to turn the whole thing into a Farage versus Binface laugh. Of course, it will be people in Clacton itself who will decide (note, in the last general election Farage secured 46% of the vote).

But there are other candidates. Lots of other candidates. Apart from Binface, some are worth mentioning. There is Laurence Fox, the former TV actor. He is a semi-professional when it comes to standing in by-elections and is nowadays a far-right activist. Then we have Jeremy Corbyn’s embarrassing elder brother, Piers, a conspiracy theorist who wants to scrap net-zero targets; and Luke Worley - a local candidate who appeared briefly on the TV show, Married at first sight, before being removed after an altercation with another contestant. There is also Adham Alkhatip of the Forward Party, which seems like a one-man show, but apparently is an “anti-corruption, pro-worker platform” - which tells you nothing.¹⁴ Who is not “anti-corruption” and “pro-worker”? And we have the 21-year-old Kai Stephens from the British Democratic Party, posting on X that it is the only organisation that is seriously patriotic and “most importantly nationalist”. The Climate Party, the Monster Raving Loony Party and Rejoin EU have all announced their intention to stand, but so far do not seem to have found candidates.

So who exactly is Socialist Worker going to urge us to vote for? In the form of Stand Up to Racism, it is promising to ‘flood’ the constituency with activists and leaflets in the attempt to “convince people, in ones and twos, not to vote for the far right”.¹⁵ Yes, great, but who should they vote for then - Binface or Luke Worley? How about Mr Fishfinger, whose ‘manifesto’ calls on voters to “Say tartare to Nige” and “you’ll Findus much better”? But it is a genuine dilemma, as there are no left candidates of any sort - no-one from George Galloway’s Workers Party of Britain or the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, let alone Your Party. Therefore the only thing you can really do is bin your ballot paper - pun intended. Admittedly this is not a profound piece of political advice or stunning electoral intervention, but the only thing worth the bother.

Alternative

But the main question, surely, from our point of view, is why is there not a leftwing candidate? There ought to be someone who, unafraid of Nigel Farage’s ‘stunt’ or ‘media circus’, makes the most of the publicity and presents the people of Clacton with a genuine working class alternative (sorry, Count Binface, for all your ‘good intentions’).

Certainly the track record of ‘joke’ candidates has not been impressive: Beppe Grillo in Italy, Michel Colucci (Coluche) in France, Pat Paulson in the US. The only way to see off the threat from Nigel Farage and the far right, which is very real, is with a clear, anti-capitalist, pro-working class, internationalist, revolutionary democratic platform. That is what we urgently need, not the lowest-common-denominator platitudes peddled by the Stand Up to Racism popular front.

In the same way, relying on commissioners and the standards commission is the politics of failure. We certainly favour the recall of wayward MPs - but only in the conditions of proportional representation. Parties should be able to replace a sitting MP with the next person on their list of candidates without any fuss or bother. The provision allowing a parliamentary vote to suspend or expel an MP and trigger a by-election is something we reject. Having a petition signed by 10% of an atomised electorate might sound democratic to the determinedly naive. However, it is open to crude manipulation by other parties and by the capitalist mass media.