Clacton shows how unserious Reform UK still is

First it was Nigel versus the establishment. Now it’s Nigel versus the police (although perhaps they’re part of the same establishment lambasted by Farage throughout the Clacton by-election – indeed, throughout his political career). Did Essex police warn Farage not to attend the Clacton count? Did they say only that they thought there would be disruption? Does anyone actually care?

Clacton was, as it always would be, a clear win for Farage. But when a man wearing a large bin on his head can win 27 per cent of the vote against the leader of the party topping the polls, one has to ask: who was the real satire candidate? I’d say it was, rather, the supposed man of the people who called a by-election to deflect from coverage of the £5 million he had been gifted. Surely the really satirical point about Clacton is that its MP called a by-election so he could then claim that he could win a by-election in his own constituency.

The Clacton by-election has been an almost entirely pointless and unnecessary affair. It’s cost the people of Clacton around £250,000. But it has had one tangential effect: it has once again drawn attention to the Farage paradox. The former leader of UKIP, the Brexit party and now Reform UK is one of the most consequential political figures of recent decades. In fact, forget that ‘one of’…

First on Brexit, then on immigration, Farage has shaped British politics in a way no other leader has been able to do since Thatcher. Even Blair has not had the lasting, long-term impact of Farage. And all that while being, to all intents and purposes, a one-man band, whose parties were simply support mechanisms for him.

Now Farage is head of a party which stands every chance of winning the next election. It is seeking to professionalise itself and has attracted a range of serious figures to work behind the scenes to do that. Objectively, this should be Farage’s moment, when the one-time outsider whose sheer force of personality and argument changed the destiny of a nation became a party leader whose inexorable journey into Downing Street was simply a matter of timing.

Yet for all the poll leads, the policy wonk hires and, yes, the by-election wins, Farage and Reform are still barely credible enough to be trusted to control local councils. Their policies are a mix of the fantastical and the impractical. Their economic approach is to promise everything to everyone who might potentially vote Reform.

Clacton has changed nothing. But it has managed to be a by-election win that highlights just how far away from being a serious party Reform remains.