What does Nigel Farage’s win in Clacton actually prove?

Well, that's exactly why we're recording this on a Friday morning instead of a Thursday afternoon because the results of the Clacton by-election were in just a couple of hours ago, returning Nigel Farage to his seat with nearly 63% of the vote.

But it was quite an odd night for those at the count because the Reform leader didn't show up to his own winning declaration.

So we'll be talking about all things Clacton, but we'll also be talking about the wider issues of Reforms polling in the country at large.

Plus, what happens now that Nigel Farage is an MP again because that means that the standard commissioner's investigation into his finances can restart, and we've had confirmation this morning that it already has.

So, let's take a quick timeline of the night before.

Nigel Farage told supporters he had a rally before the count came on, saying that he wasn't gonna go to the declaration, saying he'd been told by police about a campaign to disrupt the result, and he did not want to be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies.

Then a Reform spokesman came out and said on the record that Essex Police advised Nigel not to attend the count night due to a credible threat against him.

Then Essex Police said that warning didn't come from them, and that they didn't advise any candidates to stay away.

They said on the record, "We have a proportionate and robust policing operation to ensure the safety and security of all participants at the count." And then the acting returning officer, so the person that reads out who wins what, he's the, the council official that's in charge of the whole by-election, uh, this, in this case, Ian Davidson, he said that it was Farage's decision, uh, whether or not to attend, and that, that came from Nigel himself.

So, you know, it, it, it seems, Harriet, that there's always some kind of quirk or twist or drama when it comes to Nigel Farage.

Nothing ever just kind of goes normally, uh, although this was never really a normal by-election.

Yes, and the issue of him not showing up for the announcement of the result of the by-election, which he had caused by resigning and which he'd stood in and which he'd won, is absolutely unprecedented with the exception of, um, Bobby Sands, who was, who ran for election, but who obviously didn't go to the count 'cause he was in prison at the time.

But otherwise, it's always been regarded as a, a courtesy to the voters that if you've asked for their vote, you show up to hear the results being read out by the official who's conducting the election, which is the returning officer, to hear the results.

So once again, Nigel Farage is showing that the normal rules of doing things, uh, don't apply to him.

We, we've had a few close calls.

There was a point during the night in 2024 that we didn't think that Liz Truss would get on the stage when she lost her seat, if you remember.

That constituency result, um, took ages to get called and, and apparently it's, it's because she would not stand on the stage.

But yeah, first time since, what was it? '81 for Bobby Sands, so it's a, a pretty big precedent.

Um, Luke, you're here to do the numbers for us.

Give us a rundown in Clacton and, and give us some of the trivia as well because this is a, an election that had a whole host of subplots and minor storylines going into it as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I think the first thing to look at was the turnout.

So turnout dropped to 44%, uh, in this by-election.

That's down from 59% at the general election.

That's actually a lower drop in turnout than I was expecting for an election, a by-election in the middle of August that wasn't being, uh, contested by the main political parties, and I think that's, that's quite important for us to look at as we then go through the candidate results.