Let the mockery and disdain begin. The elected member of the Essex seat of Clacton, also leader of the populist Reform UK party, has decided to avoid the investigation into his financial affairs by going to the polls on August 13. To do so, Nigel Farage has resigned, thereby forcing the by-election vote. He senses a squeeze on various fronts: a parliamentary investigation into undeclared financial affairs, a dip in favourability as a potential Prime Minister (even if his party only has eight sitting members), and the nipping of a rival, even more savagely populist party, Restore Britain.
The payment most pressing is the £5 million, given as a supposedly unconditional gift to Farage in 2024 by Christopher Harborne, a British-Thai cryptocurrency financier who loves the Britannic flag from tropical comforts. This caught the eye of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, given that Farage had failed to declare Harborne’s gift in accordance with parliamentary rules. Other revelations have further cluttered the Farage record, including undeclared financial assistance from the aristocratic, brattish George Cottrell, fortunate to only spend eight months in a US prison for wire fraud charges.
Picking up the lessons from the school of dashing distraction and dogged deflection, Farage hopes to change the trend. But the process of electing a member to parliament is separate from the processes by which a sitting member should behave when in office, or when making a steam for it. A good number of voters will simply express wonder that they find themselves making a needless, even futile decision, seeing as they may have to go to the polls again depending on the commissioner’s findings. But Farage is seeking absolution at the ballot box, which does not improve his situation regarding the receipt of monies he finds utterly respectable.
None of the main parties have shown an interest in having their candidates stand, which may suggest either an utter contempt for democratic representation or just a contempt for Farage, who has made it a habit of trying to call the bluff of the establishment he assiduously cultivates. Either way, it leaves ample room for other prospects, those idiosyncratic figures who have made British politics a well of rich hilarity when it comes to reading out the results of the ballot. In Britain, it helps that all you need is £500 as an electoral deposit. Hence the likes of Screaming Lord Sutch, Lord Toby Jug, Captain Beany and Howling Laud Hope.
Given the brushfire nature of the modern social media landscape, one such potential candidate to ruffle feathers and seize the ticker tape updates with brio is Count Binface, a figure who is most likely the comedian Jon Harvey. (What follows is mostly true.) The Count proudly, and stubbornly, wears a bin. He claims to be 5,900-year-old intergalactic warrior from Sigma IX and leader of the Recyclons, with a curious interest in British elections, standing in five since 2019. These include the London Mayoral elections and the general elections of 2019 (against Boris Johnson) and again in 2024 when he threw in his bin in the constituency of the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Most recently, he graced the by-election in Makerfield, won by prime ministerial aspirant Andy Burnham.
That said, Harvey, whose comedic credits include being a scriptwriter and producer for Armando Iannucci’s Veep, had a previous electoral persona. In 2017, he stood in Maidenhead, the constituency of then Prime Minister Theresa May, promising “strong, if not entirely stable leadership.” He did so as Lord Buckethead. Harvey was not the first – Lord Buckethead even stood against Margaret Thatcher in 1987 and John Major in 1992. But the Maidenhead exercise was notoriously viral enough (social media wise) to catch the attention of Todd Durham, who created the character in the 1984 Star Wars parody Hyperspace (also known as Gremloids). Copyright quibbles with director Durham eventually led to Harvey’s surrender of the password to the Lord Buckethead Twitter account. A new helmeted character was needed.
Despite his rebranded intergalactic background, the Count pursues an electoral agenda that rarely alters. He promises the building of one affordable council house, the nationalisation of the singer Adele (public ownership is a public good), the renaming of London Bridge Phoebe Waller-Bridge (it is that thespian’s actual name) and placing the hand dryer in the men’s toilet at the Crown and Treaty pub in Uxbridge in “a more convenient place”. He is also standing on a platform of bringing back Ceefax, capping the price of croissants and Wigan Kebabs and tying the pay of MPs to the salaries for nurses working for the National Health Service (NHS).
There has been sheer wonderment, anger and amusement at this turn up for the books. The Count has been asked where his funding comes from. Political spouters such as Lewis Goodall, who often exude the severity of temperance activists, have decided to call him a “nobody”. Tim Stanley of The Telegraph finds it appropriate that a country that has gone the way of loonies should have a loony bin as a candidate in a seat. The dour types at The Economist muse that “the man who aspires to become prime minister at the next election will be surrounded by satirists and looneys.” Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, complains that “we cannot continue to rely on a man with a bin on his head to stop the toxic rot in our politics feeding off the public’s concern that donations drive our decision-making.” On Newsnight, the humourless Paddy O’Connell, not wishing to get into the spirit of things, pressed the Count to “bin off the bin”, declaring that all knew the suited warrior’s identity. (If so, why ask?)
However absurd this may all seem, Count Binface has already won in a fashion, even if he promises to avoid door knocking constituents for fear of heatstroke. As he explained on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme, “my job is to celebrate and defend the wonders of British democracy. And look at this? The fact that you are interviewing me… Because all the other parties aren’t standing, says more about them than it does about me.” He may not get the winning votes, but he has demonstrated through his mischievous willingness to stand how a rival, apparently serious political figure, claiming to upend the establishment, is simply another one of them, a hustler, a mountebank, and a spiv. Throw in the rich drippings of prejudice and a sharp dose of casual bigotry (sometimes not so casual), and alternatives, even those wearing a trash receptacle, look far more appealing.