How to read the Clacton result

“Why are you covering him and not us?”

An incandescent independent candidate who received between seven and fifty votes rounds on us. There is a media scrum on the balcony overlooking the Clacton by-election count. It’s a scrum for a candidate — a joke candidate. Count Binface. And a candidate, not living in the Clacton constituency, not being mentioned in the opinion polls, and not having any discernible following in the Clacton constituency, is fuming.

“Does anyone want to interview me?” the candidate asks the press pack. Another one goes as far as to harasses a journalist sat down writing to a deadline.

“He [Binface] mocks us,” one says to me. “It’s been an absolute farce.”

It wasn’t the prettiest of moments. These independents may be well-meaning. But by and large they were not local. By and large they had no following in the seat. And it showed up in the tallies. As to whether the surge for Binface is a concoction of a liberal media and liberal voters interested in liberal vibe candidates is up for debate. I think there’s certainly an argument there which explains why Binface took off but the Monster Raving Loonies didn’t, haven’t — and looking at the average age of their Monty Python activists — never will. (And I say so regrettably.)

Nigel Farage won with 63 per cent of the vote, 1pt better than what Britain Predicts said. But not like the 73 per cent suggested by Survation. He underperformed the constituency poll, but not the nationwide model.

Turnout typically falls by 40 per cent in a by-election. Clacton’s turnout should have been in the mid-30s. For it to be shy of the mid-40s is good — outsized engagement.

For Farage to perform as well as what would be expected of Reform had all the main parties been on the ballot paper is interesting, and grounds for a narrative that Farage didn’t do well.

He put on a thousand votes on a lower turnout. He rallied his base. He didn’t disappoint. But to fail in obtaining a share similar to the hypothetically combined Ref+Con vote is odd, to say the least. That’s under-performing. And for the anti-Farage vote to not disappoint — in turning out for a literal joke — is worthy of serious comment. Farage’s score was good, not great. But the anti-Farage score was… engaged.

At by-elections candidates, journalists and agents can be furnished with box count totals — in what ballot box had how many votes cast, and where did that box come from, and what was that ballot box’s number. In a roundabout way, if you can work out the geography, you can work out what the turnout was by ward.

It’s a rough estimate, but it’s interesting, and there’s a trend. Looking at the Essex County Council divisions which make up the Clacton constituency, you see two things. Turnout fell all over on the May local elections, but it barely fell in two of Reform’s strongest wards, and fell furthest in the seats where Reform was weakest.

Another angle. Seats with the strongest Reform share in May had the worst turnout of all the divisions in July. But the drift downwards was greatest in Reform’s weaker areas.

How to read this? Conventionally, absent from the ballot paper, Reform’s traditional opponents stayed home. So how then to explain the Binface vote? Has it come beyond where the mainstream parties had their strength? Is it a new kind of voter, found, even, in Reform’s stronger areas, from Reform itself? For Binface to outpoll what “the mainstream” (in all its stripes — and that includes the Conservatives!) should be getting in Clacton but not, perhaps, in mainstream’s areas, suggests just that. New ground for the anti-Reform vote, and the Reform vote.

So not a total dampener for Reform. But what could (or is it should?) have been a slam dunk super-majority for the only serious candidate on the ballot became a result akin to what it would have been had it been a normal election. Read into that what you will.

What all this means for the national numbers is pleasantly affirming — as all results increasingly are these days. Reform’s lead has waned. It’s still a serious contender for Number 10. But they’re down from 30 per cent in the opinion polls to the low to mid 20s. This is less voters losing love for Reform and more other voters learning to turn out against Reform. Clacton was but a microcosm of that.

To finish, do read my colleague Anoosh Chakelian’s write-up of the count, and the rank chaos which came from Farage’s decision to abscond his duty to attend the declaration of the result for fear of being out-stunted by the joke candidate. His aversion was was appreciable. It was strategic. He didn’t wish to give oxygen to Binface. I get that. He didn’t need to affirm his leadership in Clacton in a sweaty sports hall — he was doing it instead on an airfield for ‘Farage Fest’ in full view of activists, friends in the media and committed Reform supporters who lived locally. I get it. We talk to our bubbles now. But for Farage to abscond on grounds that Essex Police had advised him to do so… doesn’t line up with what journalists at the count, from all outlets, understood to be the case.

Read all about it.