The Most Important By-Election of 2026
Clacton may have seemed like a joke. It was deadly serious.
2026 has been a banger for by-elections. In February Gorton and Denton showed Labour haemorrhaging voters to the Greens and arguably put Keir Starmer’s premiership on a timetable. In June Aberdeen South showed us that at least in places, the Conservatives anti Net Zero rhetoric can be effective, and Makerfield delivered Andy Burnham back to Parliament to deliver the coup de grace to Starmer and give us our seventh Prime Minister in a decade.
Clacton, by comparison, gave us a showdown between Nigel Farage and a bin. This by-election did not result in a change of Prime Minister, or a change in energy policy or anything aside from a few good laughs. It may turnout to be the most significant by-election in recent history.
What Happened?
Farage called the Clacton by election to preempt the outcome of an investigation by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards into a gift of £5 million he received from crypto billionaire Christoper Harborne.
You may think that politicians shouldn’t receive “gifts” of millions of pounds from foreign based billionaires, but the rules only state that these must be declared. If it is found that Farage should have declared this “gift” it’s possible that he will be suspended from the House of Commons for long enough to enable a recall petition, which, if enough people sign, will trigger a by-election.
So Farage resigned and triggered a by-election.
He won. His vote share went up. His total number of votes went up.
Clacton Takeaways
This is an extraordinary result.
By-elections almost always have a lower turnout than a general election and Clacton was no exception (Makerfield was) which almost always results in a lower number of votes, even for the winner. David Davis, who similarly triggered a by-election in 2008 and was similarly uncontested, won fewer votes than he did in the 2005 general election. The only other time I can remember an incumbent party winning more votes at a by-election than the previous general election is Makerfield. So Farage increasing his total from 2024, is extraordinary.
What this shows is that there has been zero drop off in Reform support since the 2024 general election. Even at a by-election, where there are no opposition parties to vote against, his voters were enthused enough to turn out.
They don’t care about the five million pounds. They don’t give a monkey’s.
While retaining the loyalty of the people of Clacton, Farage has also maintained his hold on Reform. No significant member of Reform has broken with him over the five million pounds.
Good News
The good news is that despite the reactions of Clacton, the most right-wing seat in the country, this whole scandal has mostly been bad for Farage’s hopes of becoming Prime Minister. He has broken Reform’s polling lead streak, he has humiliated himself fighting an election against a bin, and he has shown Britain that he will take “gifts” from donors.
As Ian Dunt notes (in his surprisingly upbeat newsletter from the bad place), we have now seen a repeated pattern of tactical voting to keep Reform out. While Farage’s base is solid, his opposition is both numerous and organised.
The Bad Place
Now let’s go to the bad place. While Farage is less likely to be Prime Minister after the next election, Clacton has removed political guardrails that are essential if he ever does become Prime Minister.
He has now survived the worst corruption scandal in British political history. Stamer’s specs, cash for questions, duck houses. All pale in comparison to five million in cold hard cash. I’m sure this “gift” cannot be prosecuted as a bribe, but it is worth asking what Harborne expected the outcome of this “gift” to be.
Farage has demonstrated that his account is now open. His popularity among a section of the electorate has immunised him from consequences. Next time, and I’m betting there will be a next time, the outrage will be duller, the pushback practised, the same old attacks from the woke, elite, liberal media. Can you feel it? The inevitability. This is normal now.
Other politicians, particularly on the right, will now be evaluating how popular they are, and whether they could survive a similar scandal. A few million could be nice. The cleverest among them will be trying to work out how many “gifts” it would take for them to purchase an independent power base. Cultivate social media followings, purchase a social media site, a think tank, a newspaper.
The Default Option
In a two-party system, especially a first-past-the-post system, there are two important positions. Governing party, and opposition. Everyone else is an also-ran.
Perhaps Farage is not closing in on his aim of being Prime Minister but he is still in danger of becoming the default opposition to Labour. This is an incredibly powerful position. It means that unless Labour can have decades of uninterrupted sunlit-uplands, avoiding recessions, inflation, wars and scandals, at some point Reform UK will likely get into power.
Once it is clear that Reform is the default opposition, the money, careerists, experts and votes will desert the Tory party. Farage’s inability to vet candidates will disappear, think tanks will start to sprinkle credibility on his heinous policies and a thousand Jenricks will bloom. At that point a Farage premiership will stop being a bogeyman nightmare for those on the left, but a credible option for voters that are sick of Labour.
If this is happening, we are early in the transition. Recent polls have had Reform UK level pegging with a somewhat reinvigorated Conservative Party. All is not lost.
Does This Matter?
Yes, the changing relationship between money and politics absolutely matters. Britain is currently on fire. Much of England and Wales have been rain-free for coming up to three months. We have a new exciting left-wing Prime Minister that has just used the nuclear emergency system to warn us not to use disposable barbeques and … he’s making noises indicating that we may open up further fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea.
There’s an ocean of free cash floating around in fossil fuels, gambling, crypto, tobacco and private healthcare that would love to capture the state in the sixth largest economy in the world.
Cup Of Cold Sick
This has not been a great year for Farage. But Clacton is not a huge defeat for him either, indeed, it has normalised some of his most dangerous tendencies.
When in 2030, newly-minted private healthcare billionaire Richard Tice is hacking up the NHS or casino magnate/Culture Secretary Zia Yusef is tearing up gambling regulation we will measure their rise from the Clacton by-election.
After Clacton, British politics is more broken. British people more cynical. When faced with their MP receiving a “gift” of five million pounds. The people of Clacton gave what may amount to a historic shrug. Gorton felled a Prime Minister, Makerfield elected one, but Clacton may be the most important turning point of them all.