Clacton Deserves an Election, Not a Political Boycott

Nigel Farage resigning as MP for Clacton and forcing a by-election looks, to many, like political theatre.

It is difficult to see it any other way.

He is under serious scrutiny over a reported £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne, with questions raised about whether it should have been declared and what the money was for. Farage denies wrongdoing and insists there is no case to answer. That matters. Allegations are not convictions, and scrutiny is not guilt. But the timing is politically obvious. A damaging story is circling, pressure is building, and suddenly the people of Clacton are being asked to act as a jury in a by-election Farage himself has engineered.

So yes, criticism of Farage is fair. Calling it a stunt is fair. Calling it a hissy fit, as Kemi Badenoch reportedly has, may be politically blunt, but it is not difficult to understand the sentiment.

But that is not the real issue.

The real issue is this: once a seat in His Majesty’s Parliament becomes vacant, the electorate should be offered a proper democratic contest.

Not a coronation.

Not a boycott.

Not a tactical sulk by parties worried about bad optics.

A by-election is not a favour granted to political parties. It is a constitutional mechanism for representation. Parliament’s own guidance is clear: a UK parliamentary by-election happens when a House of Commons seat becomes vacant between general elections.

That seat does not belong to Nigel Farage.

It does not belong to Reform UK.

It does not belong to Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, or any other party machine.

It belongs to the people of Clacton.

That is why the reported decision by the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and others not to contest the by-election is so troubling. They may believe they are denying Farage legitimacy. They may believe they are refusing to participate in his theatre. They may believe they are taking the moral high ground.

But from the voter’s point of view, it looks dangerously close to something else.

It looks like the main parties are more frightened of losing to Farage than they are committed to giving Clacton a proper choice.

That should concern anyone who still believes democracy is more than reputation management.

At the 2024 general election, Farage won Clacton with 21,225 votes, taking 46.2% of the vote. His majority was 8,405, or 18.3 percentage points. The turnout was 58.7%, from an electorate of 78,245. There were 45,958 valid votes and 111 invalid votes.

Those numbers matter.

Farage won clearly. Nobody should pretend otherwise.

But he did not win the support of most registered voters in Clacton. His 21,225 votes amounted to roughly 27% of the total electorate. More valid votes were cast for other candidates combined than for him. The Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green candidates together received 24,219 votes, which was more than Farage’s total.

That does not make Farage’s victory illegitimate. Under our system, he won.

But it does demolish the idea that Clacton is politically irrelevant, predetermined, or unworthy of a contest.

There were thousands of Conservative voters in Clacton.

There were thousands of Labour voters.

There were Liberal Democrat voters.

There were Green voters.

There were people who voted against Farage, people who reluctantly voted for him, people who stayed at home, and people who may have changed their minds since.

What are they being told now?

That their parties will not turn up?

That their vote is not worth fighting for?

That because Farage is expected to win, democracy can be treated as optional?

That is not principled politics. It is cowardice dressed up as strategy.

The parties may argue that standing candidates would help Farage frame the by-election as “the people versus the establishment”. But refusing to stand may do exactly the same thing, only worse. It allows Farage to say the entire political class is afraid of him. It allows him to claim that his opponents have abandoned the field because they cannot beat him. It feeds the very anti-establishment narrative they claim to oppose.

More importantly, it punishes the electorate for the behaviour of a politician.

If Farage is using Clacton as a stage, the answer is not for other parties to leave the stage empty. The answer is to contest the argument properly.

Stand a candidate.

Make the case.

Challenge him on the £5 million gift.

Challenge him on local delivery.

Challenge him on whether resigning and re-standing is a serious act of accountability or a calculated attempt to reset the news cycle.

Challenge him on whether Clacton is being represented or merely used.

But do not deny voters a serious democratic contest because party headquarters dislike the battlefield.

The Electoral Commission’s guidance makes the practical danger clear: if only one valid nomination is received, the election is uncontested and that candidate is declared elected.

In plain English, if no serious opposition stands, Clacton may not get a meaningful election at all.

That should be unacceptable.

We are constantly told that democracy is under pressure. We are told about misinformation, populism, distrust, disengagement and falling faith in institutions. Yet when a real parliamentary seat opens, the main parties appear willing to step back because the contest is inconvenient.

This is how democratic rot sets in.

Not always through dramatic coups or constitutional crises.

Sometimes it happens through parties deciding that preserving their image matters more than offering voters a choice.

Sometimes it happens when political leaders conclude that losing would be embarrassing, so they refuse to compete.

Sometimes it happens when the electorate is treated not as sovereign, but as a public relations risk.

I am no supporter of Nigel Farage. I do not admire this resignation. I do not think serious questions about money, influence and parliamentary standards should be answered by political showmanship. Those questions should be answered properly, through scrutiny, evidence and due process.

But Clacton still deserves an election.

The people there deserve candidates.

They deserve arguments.

They deserve leaflets through the door, hustings, interviews, local scrutiny, doorstep conversations and a ballot paper that reflects real political choice.

If Farage wins again, so be it. That is democracy.

If he loses, so be it. That is democracy too.

But if the major parties refuse to stand because they fear the optics of defeat, they are not protecting democracy from Farage. They are weakening it themselves.

The right to vote only means something when voters are given a genuine choice.

Clacton should not be reduced to a political stunt.

But nor should it be abandoned by parties too cautious to fight.

A seat in Parliament has opened.

The electorate should decide who fills it.

All serious parties should have the courage to stand.

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