Nigel Farage's decision to resign as an MP and run in a by-election risks draining support from the right-wing Reform party, with the move labelled a “stunt” designed to distract attention from his financial issues.
Mr Farage made the move to change his political circumstances as French right-wing leader Marine Le Pen dramatically entered the 2027 presidential race.
Senior Reform figures have told The National that his resignation as MP for Clacton was at first thought “clever, then stupid” after all the main UK political parties refused to put up candidates.
That leaves the possibility of just one fringe candidate standing against Mr Farage: Count Binface, a veteran of standing against prime ministers and other high-profile figures, including the probable next UK leader, Andy Burnham.
Familiar tactic
Seeking legitimacy through the ballot box after embezzlement charges is a strategy that has become increasingly popular among populist parties in Europe. It has been embraced by Ms Le Pen, the favourite to win next year's presidential election.
Ms Le Pen, 57, made a dramatic U-turn on Tuesday when she announced she would run in next year's election just hours after an appeals court confirmed her guilt in embezzling €2.8 million ($3.2 million) from European Parliament funds between 2004 and 2016 to pay party employees in France instead of Brussels.
By bringing her case to the country's highest court, Ms Le Pen is trying to avoid running a campaign wearing an ankle tag as demanded by the appeals judges, though she may still face the prospect. She had previously vowed she would not run next year if she had to wear the tag.
Political opponents have accused her of hypocrisy and immorality. Before her legal woes, she had demanded lifelong ineligibility for politicians found guilty of embezzlement. When she was made ineligible to run for five years at her first trial last year, she was quick to lambast judges, saying they were robbing the French of the choice of voting for her.
A poll conducted by broadcaster BFMTV on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after she announced her candidacy, showed that nearly 60 per cent of respondents disapproved of her decision.
Yet approval is high among party supporters (68 per cent) and remains strong (51 per cent) among right-wing voters from Les Republicains party. Left-wing voters disapprove of her candidacy (79 per cent among a broad left-wing alliance). Centrist from Emmanuel Macron's party Ensemble also reject it (75 per cent).
“The French people will have the last word,” Ms Le Pen said Thursday.
Parliament's rules
In the UK, Mr Farage is under investigation in parliament over a £5 million ($6.7 million) donation plus other cash gifts he has received from wealthy backers and if the authorities find that he acted improperly, they could have imposed a “recall” by-election to challenge his status as an MP.
By resigning, Mr Farage, who is facing strong media scrutiny over his transactions, has essentially asked voters to judge his actions, not what he characterised as a liberal “establishment” bent on discrediting him.
But in the hours that followed, all the main political parties, who trail Reform in the polls, said they would not take part in the Clacton vote called a “stunt” to distract attention from his finances.
Clever narrative
The senior Reform figure disclosed that “everyone thought it was clever to get ahead of the narrative and then instantly thought it was a stupid idea”.
“I don't think anyone anticipated the counter move,” the source added.
But now with the main parties gone, anti-Reform voters would probably “coalesce around Count Binface and that makes Nigel look foolish”.
Prof Tony Travers, a senior politics lecturer at the London School of Economics, said the move had “backfired” and “did not resolve the original issue of ending parliamentary scrutiny”.
“The optics look chaotic,” he added. “The fact that Count Binface has been given a degree of credibility by it is probably not something he wanted.”
However, former Conservative minister David Jones, who defected to Reform, called it a “clever” decision and accused the main parties of “bottling it” in refusing to stand against him.
The move has not been well received by the British public, especially as a by-election costs the taxpayers £275,000, something Reform said it would cover.
A snap poll for YouGov found that more than four in 10 (43 per cent) opposed the decision, compared to only 24 per cent in favour.
Three in five (60 per cent) thought he had not been honest about his financial affairs, with only 12 per cent thinking he had been totally forthcoming.
Count Binface, MP?
Count Binface has the chance of an upset. The outlandish figure created by comedian Jonathan Harvey, who has run against three prime ministers over the last decade, will probably surpass the 95 votes he received in Makerfield last month when running against Mr Burnham. Mr Farage won with 46 per cent of the vote in 2024.
There was “an outside chance of about 30 per cent”, said the Reform source, that the man who wears a silver outfit with a matching cape and a silver rubbish bin on his head could win.
He also admitted that the media investigations into Mr Farage meant “the pressure's getting to him a bit”.
“Nigel seems to be losing the will a lot over the last few months. I think he was not enjoying it even before the scandal,” he added.
The decision had clearly “backfired” with the other parties refusing to stand, said former Labour adviser Andrew Murray. “Then what do you do if the establishment doesn't show up? His bluff has clearly been called and this just looks like a stunt.”
But if parliament does find that Mr Farage has breached the rules and a by-election is called, then the major parties will stand.
Political observers now believe that the Reform leader may well leave front line politics to return to making money in television presenting and brand endorsement.
“He doesn’t like scrutiny and a lot of people, myself included, don’t think he really wants to be prime minister,” said Mr Murray. “He's stopped doing press conferences, stopped any form of media and when he has been doorstepped he's shown a very sort of irascible, entitled side.”
Sunniva Rose contributed to this report
