Nigel Farage is heading back to parliament – and straight back into a political crisis.
As expected, the Reform UK leader comfortably won Thursday’s Clacton by-election, increasing his majority from 8,500 in 2024 to more than 12,000.
This was hardly surprising, given his nearest challenger was Count Binface after Labour, the Tories, Lib Dems and Greens refused to put candidates.
The self-styled intergalactic space warrior managed to receive an astonishing 9,455 votes – his best ever by-election performance.
He said: “What does that tell you? Well it tells you that Nigel, who said he didn’t want to be humiliated, maybe has been.”
Nevertheless, it would be churlish to deny that Farage’s 63% vote share on a 44% turnout was still an impressive result.
There can be no doubt about it, the vast majority of the people of Clacton love the Reform leader and are very happy for him to continue as their MP.
His popularity in the constituency could well be put to the test again very soon, as no sooner had his re-election been confirmed than the parliamentary standards commissioner announced that his investigation into Farage was resuming.
The probe was launched earlier this year into his failure to declare a £5 million gift from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire shortly before the general election.
That ultimately led to Farage’s resignation as Clacton MP last month, claiming he was the victim of a “witch-hunt” and saying it was up to voters, not the Commons authorities, to decide his fate.
Should the commissioner find him guilty, and he be suspended from parliament for more than 10 sitting days, a recall petition will take place which could lead to another by-election.
But that is just one of many problems piling up in Farage’s bulging in-tray.
Chief among them is what to do about Zia Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, who on Tuesday earned a rare public rebuke from his leader after describing former Tory defence secretary Ben Wallace of being “a traitor to Britain”.
His tirade against the former Scots Guard, who was mentioned in dispatches for his bravery in Northern Ireland, related to the Afghan resettlement schemes set up under the last Conservative government and supported by Reform at the time.
Speaking to The Sun, Farage said Yusuf’s language had been “too strong”.
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