As Nigel Farage initiates a by-election in Clacton, questions arise about his political motives and the implications for Reform UK amidst a disillusioned electorate.
London, United Kingdom Jul 12, 2026 ALN: SO the electorate is so scunnered with politics – even in Scotland – that some of them are minded to let the “other lot” have a go. Time, methinks, to have a gander at the other lot.
Led, if that’s the verb I’m looking for, by the Nigel Farage person who turns up ubiquitously on Question Time, presumably because they think he’s good box office.
Among the other things he is, is the MP for Clacton, or was until he suddenly called a by-election. This pleased nobody but Count Binface, who thinks he might finally be in with a chance, since none of the so-called mainstream parties are standing.
In truth, it took Farage seven attempts to get his feet under a Westminster desk. Not that his feet spend much time there. At the last count he had missed more than 60 votes in the Commons and seems to be in Donald Trumpland more often than his constituency.
Now that he’s arranged a by-election for which nobody asked, his constituents might finally get a wee glimpse of him.
He is, of course, a big pal of The Donald, turning up at his rally, at a Republican Convention, and bragging that Elon Musk was about to throw a lot of lolly at Reform UK.
Interestingly, we learn that President Trump and his assorted weans and wife have also made a pile out of cryptocurrency, although the poor bloody infantry who bought his Trump coins fared rather less well.
Although the Musk donation has yet to drop amid rumours of a rift, Farage did manage to trouser a cool £5 million from a Thai-based crypto billionaire. This “private gift” is currently under investigation, as is another half million given to Reform by “posh” George Cottrell’s posh mummy. The latter deal is interesting the Met polis, we hear, on the grounds that the actual source of the money was unclear.
And our Nigel did find time to try to stop the Bank of England creating its own digital currency on the grounds that it might interfere with the profits racked up by his main beneficiary, who has also given millions to Reform.
The bank’s governor, by all accounts, did not come up the Clyde on a wafer and turned a deaf ear to this blatant lobbying.
Meanwhile, to nobody’s surprise, Farage tops the earning list of money not gained by being an MP. Though the Commons salary plus office expenses is none too shabby. Then there’s his presenter’s salary from GB “News” plus dosh from his spell in the jungle, and who kens whit else.
Let’s just say he “earns” more than most of his constituents could amass after a lifetime at work.
Outside of getting lottery-style winnings from his Thai pal, Farage also had use of a four-storey building owned by Cottrell, who also supplied Farage with minions to run his social media accounts.
Although Farage was allegedly not in politics at that time, when you might think there was little need for media postings. And when does running a party have nothing to do with politics, you might well ask?
The leader of the LibDems asked, not unreasonably, why Farage did not wait for any by-election till after the publication of the report into the cash “gifted” to him. Silly Sir Ed Davey. Don’t you know that a by-election gives you maximum protection from anybody raising anything about your dosh?
It takes a bit of gall to present yourself as the anti-establishment candidate in Clacton when you’re a filthy rich, privately educated, former commodities broker who allegedly caused his partner to buy a home for cash. Then again, gall has never been in short supply round his way. Nor threats to sue anyone with the cheek to query his background.
Talking of homes, this brings me to that other “man of the people” Malcolm Offord – the Baron who told a TV audience that not only could he rest his napper in any one of six homes, but that he also had five cars and the same number of yachts.
Malcolm, who was once given a dissy by his local electorate in Inverclyde, got himself into Holyrood as a list MSP. But not before Farage had anointed him Reform’s Scottish leader.
It seems to be of no moment that he had zero experience of elections; after all, he had already got a gig at the Scotland Office from Alister Jack with a similar absence of anything you might regard as a track record. Unlike two others after the same job at the time. One of his former colleagues in the Tory ranks said it reeked of “cronyism”.
Jack, who now bides in the Lords, hit the headlines this past week by suggesting that some of Holyrood’s powers should be revoked and given to Westminster. He’s beginning to sound a lot like fellow peer, Labour’s perpetually furious George Foulkes.
It’s difficult not to conclude that the Reform Party is chock full of very rich blokes, wannabes and never weres. Robert Jenrick joined their ranks having been kicked out of the Tory Party when the woman he fought for the leadership found he was planning his defection.
Jenrick, you may recall, was the Conservative who saved former pornographer and Express owner Richard Desmond very many millions by pochling the planning laws.
Then there’s former Reform chair Zia Yusuf; forced to confess on Question Time that the reason he wasn’t actually an MP was because his colleagues refused to select him.
Honestly, you’d need to be off the right-wing scale to be too far right for Reform to welcome you.
Yusuf apparently cheesed off so many Reform employees that even his own party felt it was time for a change. Even if that change was to make him into a poor man’s Elon Musk, charged with finding “Doge” savings.
Let us also remember Restore Britain’s Rupert Lowe, a former Faragiste, who remembered the Dunblane massacre as a single murder, whilst mourning the fact that his dead, pistol-packing dad had his guns removed after the post-Dunblane handgun ban.
Lowe has a “solution” to migrant labour. He wants to deport everyone not “properly” British. Like so many of his ilk, he hankers after a golden age that never was.
And who could forget the Welsh leader of what was then Ukip, Nathan Gill, who wound up in the clink for taking money from the Kremlin to ask the “right” questions in the European Parliament. He and Nigel were big buddies when the ex-Ukip, ex-Brexit Party, and now Reform boss served together.
They say you can tell the character of a man by the company he keeps. I doubt that schmoozing Trump, Musk, Cottrell, and Gill gives our Nigel much in the way of credibility.
Neither does their manifesto which promises to sort absolutely everything, omitting only any evidence of how they plan to pay for it.
Immigration is their number one obsession, of course, and they’ve managed to persuade lots of folk who have never met a migrant in their puff to come over all indignant about the numbers of illegals on our shores. A rather small number as it happens.
Worse still, they’ve moved it so far up the agenda in other parties that we have the sight of the current Labour Home Secretary scrabbling to pull up the ladder behind her mum and dad. In between making getting UK citizenship an ever longer ordeal. Is she sure she’s in the right party?
Of course the good people of Clacton might just take a closer look at their ever-absent MP and chuck him out. I will not be among the mourners.
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