Farage faces Count Binface in Clacton by-election after resignation
Farage’s resignation has set up a 13 August Clacton by-election, where his most visible rival is Count Binface after major parties stayed out.
Nigel Farage resigned on 8 July 2026 as the Reform UK MP for Clacton, and the seat will go to a by-election on 13 August. The House of Commons said the resignation followed a complaint from a member of the public about entries in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests being filed outside the 28-day deadline, and that it then carried out a wider review of Farage’s financial interests.
The contest lands in a constituency that is still new to the map. Clacton was created after the 2023 boundary review, and Farage won it at the 4 July 2024 general election with a majority of 8,405 on a 58.7% turnout in an electorate of 78,245. Farage has said he will stand again, framing the by-election as another test of whether Clacton voters want him back in Parliament after the scrutiny over his finances.
With major Westminster parties saying they will not contest the race, the most visible opponent is Count Binface, the satirical protest candidate with a bin on his head. That leaves the by-election poised less as a conventional party fight than as a measure of how much room remains for voters who want to signal anger at mainstream politics without backing one of the major parties.
Count Binface has spent years turning that kind of protest into a recurring campaign. He won 24,260 votes in the 2024 London mayoral election and 308 votes in Richmond & Northallerton at the 2024 general election. He also stood in Uxbridge & South Ruislip at the 2023 by-election and the 2019 general election there, building a profile that depends on persistence as much as performance.
His campaign has leaned into that brand of absurdity while staying firmly political. The Count Binface campaign says his platform includes justice, lasers, Lovejoy, affordable croissants and the return of Ceefax, and he has already published a 2026 Makerfield manifesto and campaign song. In Clacton, that kind of candidacy is not just comic relief. It is what happens when a seat becomes a stage for frustration, attention and accountability all at once.
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