In Count Binface, popular culture has a new political hero

If you’ve been following British politics lately, you probably know that we have a new Prime Minister in Andy Burnham after the Labour Party dumped the (bizarrely) hated Keir Starmer fearing he was straight on track to a massive loss against Nigel Farage and his insurgent Reform UK Party. There is another strange political event that just came to a head, however, which typifies the eccentricity of British politics: the Clacton by-election.

Potted history: Clacton-on-Sea is a widely disenchanted and deprived enclave on the east coast in Essex, one of numerous British coastal towns who have suffered from the austerity in British politics over the last decade or more. They have grown frustrated at immigration which they feel has directly influenced their communities via illegal boat crossings. Seeking a way into Parliament, Farage—usually a canny political operator—stood for MP and won in the 2024 election on the Reform ticket, promising to curb immigration and improve Clacton‘s fortunes.

Two years on, he has spent lots of time schmoozing the Trump administration in Washington and has only appeared to take much of an interest in Clacton again when a parliamentary standards committee have started investigating him over a massive £5 million donation from a crypto billionaire, Christopher Harborne. In a fit of pique, angry at being asked questions by the press, Farage decided to resign as an MP and trigger the standard process, a by-election to decide a new MP, which he would stand in, win, and let ‘the people of Clacton’ decide on his virtue in terms of whether he had broken the regulations or not.

Quite apart from fact that the people of Clacton and the parliamentary standards committee are two different things, whether they vote for him or not doesn’t change the fact he is being investigated and might yet be forced to contest his seat in a second by-election as a result if they find him guilty. Farage’s claim that it would be a vote against ‘the establishment’ is, like everything else Reform do, empty populism coated with the stain of far right discourse lurking underneath. It is more likely distraction politics, seeking to divert the attention economy away from Burnham and policies actually meant to help people and toward him.

In any event, what’s interesting about this sideshow isn’t Farage and the taxpayer funded pantomime he kicked off, but his main contender. All of the other main political parties chose not to field candidates for the by-election, quite rightly refusing to dance to Farage’s tune, which has left a series of independents, eccentrics, oddballs and in one case, a genuine modern folk hero to take him on.

Yes, one Count Binface.

A self-styled ‘intergalactic space warrior‘, Binface is a character played by Jon Harvey, a comedy writer with an Oxford educated background and experience writing for satirical BBC shows such as The Thick of It and Have I Got News For You. This has seen Farage and Reform attempt to cast Binface as representative of ‘the establishment’ they see themselves as a rebuke towards, despite the fact Farage and so many of those in his party typify that moniker. It’s a false connection given Binface very quickly rose to become Farage’s biggest challenger in the Clacton by-election.

With policies such as making all 99p ice creams cost 99p again (easily one the most common sense things I’ve ever heard a politician say!) and bringing back Ceefax (Google it, kids), Binface has attracted the appeal of the entire country due to a smart and canny marketing campaign across social media (including here on Substack), TV and podcast appearances, live shows, billboards in various locations (with pledges such as “fewer billboards by politicians”), popular hashtags such as #binforthewin and even a comic-book strip which was publicised last weekend in the Observer.

Harvey had previously employed a similar stunt during the Brexit negotiation days as Lord Buckethead, running against Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May in her Maidenhead constituency during the 2017 general election, but he was forced to retire that name and character due to a legal claim. Count Binface, a very similar concept, was born. Pitched somewhere between Darth Vader and a pedant, Harvey adopts a shrill accent as he challenges who he considers to be the out of touch and arrogant, popping up again to take on Boris Johnson in his Uxbridge & South Ruislip constituency during the 2019 general election, before contesting London mayoral elections in 2021 and 2024, and the equally infamous Makerfield by-election in 2026 which was part of Burnham’s strategy to becoming Prime Minister.

Nothing has brought him the same level of popularity and notoriety than taking on Farage in Clacton, however. This farce has turned Binface, not Harvey, into near enough a household name.

Inevitably, the right wing press have come for him, trying to cast Harvey as an example of a liberal elite trying to squash insurgent politics ‘for the people’. Attempts have been made to try and get Harvey to remove the mask, which he stays in character and deftly avoids through humour, but those who understand the impact he’s having want to separate Binface from Harvey. Why? Because they know that Binface is no less an interloper running to represent Clacton as Farage, who has utilised the endemic inequality and social deprivation of a seaside town to get at long last into Parliament and begin Reform’s work, borrowing from the MAGA American playbook as a means of gaining power.

What has struck this time with Binface is just how much the British people have taken to the character and propped him up as an unlikely folk hero for our times, as progressive voters resist the scourge of far right populism. Nobody expected Binface to win in Clacton—and he of course didn’t—but while polls in that constituency rightly predicted a comfortable Farage victory, polls of the broader populous have showed greater positive support of Binface than Farage. That means among a nation Farage hopes one day to govern, he is less well-liked than a satirist comedian playing a silly, fictionalised space warrior with a bin helmet. That in itself is not just embarrassing, it’s staggering and indeed quite reassuring.

Farage and his advisors don’t seem to understand that the British public at large simply don’t want MAGA politics in the UK. Trump according to polls is widely disliked by the British public. Supporting Binface is not, therefore, about reaffirming the ‘establishment’, but rather rebuking what Farage is trying to offer the nation. He wants to be the kind of folk hero Binface has turned out to be, but outside of a core base, he has no idea how to broaden that appeal. He shows no humility, no attempt to ingratiate beyond a boorish, farmers in the pub charm, and bristles even at the slightest level of interrogation. He is even easier to lampoon or prick than Boris with his shabby bluster or May in her short sighted awkwardness. Farage could not have made this easier for Binface if he tried.

The more extreme or hardened right just don’t seem to understand popular culture, and they baulk at satire especially. It would be hard to imagine a comedian firmly of the right—a Jim Davidson or Lee Hurst, for want of better suggestions because, if I’m honest, there aren’t many—creating a character like Binface. They can’t really marry up irreverence, cinematic or literature-based allusions and pure self-mockery into anything approaching a rounded, successful caricature. They’re too busy self-flagellating in their echo chambers or punching down. You can accuse the left of similar, of course, but there’s a reason most successful comedians come from a liberal bent. They understand the history and cultural lexicon they’re playing from better.

Even some of the Clacton population showed they would not simply fall into a growing stereotype of their town as gaslit locals. While Farage won over 63% of the vote, with a thousand more votes than in 2024, he had a smaller voter base of just 44% this time around (big for by-election standards). Binface hoovered up nearly 27% and almost 10,000 votes. Over a quarter of Clacton who voted, chose a comedy bin character over Farage. They knew he wouldn’t win. They wouldn’t want him to win. It was a message to Farage. Don’t take us for granted. Some of us can see through you. If the by-election was a Farage protest at a system of governmental law he is accused (and I stress accused, nothing has been proved) of flouting, in the guise of letting the people speak, then Binface’s success is a protest at his transparent hubris.

So what happens now? Farage probably goes back to banging his usual drums and trying to bemoan having to accede to parliamentary oversight. The people of Clacton probably go back to being represented in all but name. And Binface? He will probably be there when we need him again, in the finest folk hero tradition.

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