24JUL

Clacton by-election set for 13 August

1 min read

12:51UTC

Farage will restand in the Clacton by-election on 13 August against a field the major parties have vacated, with Count Binface his most prominent challenger.

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Key takeaway

The Clacton by-election is set for 13 August, with the major parties standing aside.

Nigel Farage will restand in the Clacton by-election set for 13 August, the Essex seat he resigned to force the contest . Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, The Greens and Restore Britain have all declined to stand , leaving the satirical candidate Count Binface as his most prominent declared challenger. ¹

An Ipsos poll fielded in early July put Binface on 33% against Farage's 21%, a national head-to-head preference measure rather than Clacton voting intention. ² Roughly 40,000 Clacton electors, not the national sample, decide the seat.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Nigel Farage gave up his Clacton seat on 8 July and will fight to win it back in a by-election on 13 August. A poll making headlines put the satirical candidate Count Binface ahead of him, 33% to 21%. That figure is worth reading carefully: it's not a poll of Clacton voters asking who they'll actually vote for. It's a national survey asking people across the whole country to pick between just those two names, which tends to flatter a novelty candidate. Nobody has yet polled Clacton itself.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

Ipsos's 33%-21% figure is a forced national head-to-head preference question, asking a UK-wide sample to pick between only two named individuals, not a constituency-level voting-intention poll of Clacton electors; national name-recognition polls of this kind systematically favour novelty candidates because respondents who would never vote for either in their own seat still have to pick one.

No pollster has yet fielded constituency-level voting intention in Clacton itself, the actual figure that will decide the 13 August result, so the widely shared 33-21 split describes national sentiment about Farage rather than any measured level of support for Count Binface's candidacy there.

Sources:Ipsos

Mentions:Nigel Farage →Count Binface →Ipsos →Clacton →Essex →Parliament →Restore Britain →Liberal Democrats →Conservative Party →Green Party →

First Reported In

Update #12 · The finance bill Reform outran is back

Ipsos· 15 Jul 2026

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Causes and effects

This Event

Clacton by-election set for 13 August

The by-election decides whether Farage returns to Parliament, which would also reopen the paused standards inquiry.

Led to

Farage to quit Clacton and refight it

The by-election follows directly from Farage's announcement he would resign Clacton.

Occurred 7 Jul 2026

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Every party but Binface boycotts Farage

The contest is shaped by the major parties' earlier decision not to stand candidates.

Occurred 7 Jul 2026

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Clacton draws a record 34 candidates

Farage's resignation from Clacton on 8 July created the by-election that drew a record 34 nominations.

Occurred 17 Jul 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

Reform UK

Reform lost Old Catton, the Norfolk seat it won by 1,006 votes ten weeks earlier, to the Conservatives on 16 July, while holding second in both other 16 July by-elections it did not previously hold. The party's May intake already undershot MRP polling by 38%, evidence its local base is thinner than its seat count suggested.

MHCLG / Steve Reed

Reed confirmed 38 new unitaries for 14 counties on 16 July but held back West Sussex and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, saying further time was needed. The department locked in the areas it was confident defending and paused the two it was not.

Local Government Association / litigating councils

Harlow's judicial review, filed 22 July, makes it the fifth council suing over reorganisation, joining Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Portsmouth, with none yet granted a full hearing. New LGA chair Eamonn O'Brien's 7 July intervention now sits behind their case, arguing the timetable itself risks statutory services.

Local Government Association

New chair Eamonn O'Brien broke the LGA's neutrality on reorganisation for the first time since December 2024, telling the incoming prime minister the 'unprecedented scale' of disaggregation risks statutory services and asking him to adjust the LGR timetable, aligning the sector's institutional voice with the judicial review claims Suffolk, Essex and Norfolk have already filed.

Incoming Burnham government

Burnham secured 349 of the backing the NEC's 81-MP threshold required by 13 July, becoming Labour leader on 17 July and prime minister on 20 July without a members' ballot. He now inherits the LGR timetable the LGA wants him to adjust and a finance bill his own backbencher, Liam Byrne, is trying to harden further via amendment NC34.

Rupert Lowe / Restore Britain

Lowe called Farage's Clacton contest a 'Reform-sponsored media circus' and kept Restore Britain out of it, pledging instead to stand in the second by-election he expects the Harborne inquiry to force later this year. The boycott doubles as a signal that Restore Britain, not Reform, will contest the 'real' vote.