The latest piece of political theatre has taken a turn for the decidedly absurd, where, following Nigel Farage's announcement yesterday that he would stand down as MP to trigger a by-election, only two other candidates have so far confirmed their candidacy... a joke candidate from a fake party, and 'Count Binface'.

Forgive my little jibe there at my old foxish fiend Lozza, for it is indeed he - Laurence Fox, of the inert shopfront 'Reclaim' party - standing in Clacton against Farage, as well as "satirical" candidate, Count Binface (of the eponymous party).

All the major parties - Conservatives, Labour, Lib Dems, Greens - have declared they will not be standing candidates.

So, let's unpack what's actually going on here...

The major parties are claiming they will not stand against Farage on principle: they are framing this by-election as a stunt and a sham, staged purely for Farage's ego and to detract attention from sleaze allegations.

Reform and their supporters, meanwhile, have hit back, claiming that, by all refusing to stand, the "uni-party" are confirming that that's exactly what they are - all taking the same action at the same time for the same ostensible reason - and that the real reason they don't stand is fear and cowardice: they know they can't win.

So, instead, they hide behind a disingenuous 'joke candidate'.

Whilst clearly the idea of a political candidate named Count Binface, who parades around with a literal bin on his head, is meant to be seen by voters as a harmless gimmick, there is nothing gimmicky about the man behind the bin.

Jonathan David Harvey is an Oxford graduate turned screenwriter, who has extensive BBC writing credentials to his name spanning the last thirty years.

To quote from his Ebdon Management biography:

"Jon Harvey is a comedy writer, performer and producer. His credits include some of the biggest satirical TV shows of the last thirty years, including The Thick Of It, Have I Got News For You, Time Trumpet with Armando Iannucci, Yes Minister and Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. His Radio 4 shows with Rob Newman have won two BBC Audio Drama Awards, and his online comedy videos have amassed over 70 million hits. In 2019 the New Yorker garlanded him for creating one of the 'Jokes of the Year' with his Succession parody starring Boris Johnson."

So: not just a harmless nobody with a bin on his head, but rather, a highly accomplished establishment asset, lauded by the BBC, the New York Times, and with multiple accolades from major public figures to his name, including Jeremy Vine, Emily Maitlis, and several mainstream newspapers.

But if his establishment credentials needed any further underlining, here is imminent Labour leader, Andy Burnham himself, literally promoting the Binface candidacy, whilst doing what could very easily be construed as a Masonic handshake.

So, with this glowing endorsement, Burnham has ensured he lends major credibility to Reform's position that every other party - even the ostensible joke ones - are part of the establishment, and only Reform are the true outliers.

Whilst initially, the major parties refusing to stand may have appeared as a blow to Farage's credibility - "omg, he's literally standing against a bin, what a farce" (some commentators compared it to the 'Boaty McBoatface' story) - actually, if you look more closely, it enhances it.

This move lends credibility to the idea that all the major parties are one and the same, all part of the monolithic "them", and that they are truly frightened of Farage - because, so the argument goes, if they genuinely believed they could unseat him, why miss an opportunity to do so? Binface obviously cannot win, but a crushing defeat for a joke candidate isn't a galling humiliation in the way it is for a serious one. So, the quaking establishment hides behind Binface to disguise their own fear and inadequacies - that's the line.

It's all very clever scriptwriting, with plenty of the unforeseen plot twists that keep audiences guessing and on the edge of their seats (I mean, I like to think I have fairly good predictive abilities, but I confess I could not possibly have foreseen, when I wrote my piece yesterday, that this contest was essentially going to be between Nigel Farage and a bin).

So, bearing all this in mind, what to make of the additional candidacy of Laurence Fox?

In the first instance, it gives the by-election more legitimacy. Laurence Fox claims to be a serious political figure leading a proper party, not an overt joke like Count Binface, so his decision to contest the seat refocuses the debate away from "ha ha, it's between Farage and a bin", and moves it back closer to real politics.

Fox makes clear this is his intention, writing on X:

"If I was a canvasser for any of the established political parties I would be pretty miffed that my party leaders had decided not to represent my voice just because they hate Nigel so much.

What a state British politics is in when political parties don’t stand in elections. This is meant to be a democracy. People should have options when choosing who to vote for.

I also sympathise with Nigel being harassed and abused by the media and the establishment. I lost an extremely lucrative career for speaking up and have been targeted by the police and others for opinions.

There’s lots of things that Nigel won’t want to talk about in this election and someone is going to have to provide a voice on the “right” (whatever that means) so in the absence of a mainstream political party going out there, someone else has to."

However, it's important to re-emphasise - as I have done many times over the years - that Reclaim is not, in fact, a real party. On the surface they are, they're registered with the Electoral Commission, they have a serious website, and they (very occasionally) stand candidates.

But they do not accept members, there is no internal democratic structure, and hence, no way to vote Fox out as leader. A self-styled 'freedom' party is actually a dictatorship.

Moreover, since their inception six years ago, they have represented a grand total of three candidates, all of them establishment celebrities. Fox himself, the high-profile stand-up comic, Leo Kearse, and former editor of Loaded, Martin Daubney. No other candidates have been accepted, despite, I have been told, many making enquiries and offering their services.

The sole bankroller for Fox's Reclaim party is businessman Jeremy Hosking (also Andrew Bridgen's "go-to multi-millionaire", as mentioned in a previous article), and Mr Hosking has ploughed several million pounds into the party over the last six years.

Jeremy Hosking has also been a very generous contributor to Reform, donating a total of £1.7 million to the party.

Why would Hosking, the sole bankroller of Reclaim, be so generous to an ostensible political rival?

Because, it seems quite clear, Reform and Reclaim are not actually rivals at all, but rather, Reclaim is a support vehicle for Reform. The purpose of Reclaim is to pose as a political party, but not to actually function as one (since they do not accept members, barely stand candidates, and those they do stand are all celebrity performers), in order to create the illusion of political plurality and choice, whilst, in reality, funnelling more support towards Reform.

Any serious right-leaning voter looking at the ballot paper and seeing a choice between Fox and Farage is going to go for Farage every time. Fox's electoral record is abysmal, and he has never once gained enough votes to even retain his deposit.

Fox made it rather clear his real role is to enhance support for Reform when, in the 2024 General Election, he explicitly endorsed Reform rather than his own party (who, as usual, did not stand any candidates).

So, although I most certainly didn't see the bin-shaped curveball coming yesterday, my predictions remain largely unchanged: this by-election is about enhancing Nigel Farage / Reform's credentials as "the only real anti-establishment choice", to pave the way for a General Election that Reform will go on to win.

Alternatively, Count Binface will storm to victory in Clacton and the General Election will be Burnham v Binface, which would certainly be one of the few pieces of political theatre worth tuning in for...

Just to add for the hard of thinking (otherwise known as my interminable Twitter trolls), this article is about high-level, high-profile politics. The stuff that makes the headlines. The politicians who get platformed on mainstream TV. It's not about local council elections which get virtually no publicity, involving people nobody's ever heard of. There is an ocean of difference between local politics and national politics and I've written about this many, many times.

I just clarify this because of some comments I got to the general effect of "haha, you're saying it's all theatre but you've also said people should vote, gotcha!!!".

I think it is worth getting involved in local council politics, yes, but that national, high-profile politics is all a staged show, so it's generally not, other than for publicity purposes (i.e., standing as an MP candidate can draw more attention to a cause, even if you have no hope of getting elected). This has consistently been my position, so my critiquing the latest bit of national political theatre is not inconsistent with my beliefs about the value of participating at the local level. It's not a "gotcha", sorry. So I will deposit that piece of criticism directly where it belongs, straight in the Count Binface...

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