3AUG

Clacton by-election set for 13 August

1 min read

15:31UTC

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

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Clacton's ballot paper splits the right four ways

The 13 August by-election date set on 8 July is the poll the nomination paper is for.

Occurred 17 Jul 2026

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Farage wins Clacton back by 12,784 votes

Farage's confirmation that he would restand set up the 13 August contest that produced this result.

Occurred 14 Aug 2026

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Different Perspectives

Scottish Labour members

Scottish Labour's published leadership nominations show 33 MPs and MSPs backing Michael Marra against 12 for Joe Fagan, with members voting until 17 September and a result on 19 September. Elected members do not cast the ballot, so the nomination gap measures the parliamentary party rather than the membership that will decide it.

Electoral Commission

The Electoral Commission published its Q2 2026 donations register on 3 September, recording Reform UK's £5.44m as the highest of any party and Ben Delo's £4m as two cash gifts. The register records a donation's form and amount, not the origin of a donor's wealth, so a cash gift shows the same as any other.

Reform UK

Danny Kruger, Reform UK's MP for East Wiltshire, called the Bill "a flagrantly partisan attempt to kneecap Reform UK" during the 2 September debate, objecting to its trade-union exemption. Reform enters its Birmingham conference having topped Q2's donor register at £5.44m, £4m of it in cash from Ben Delo, a form the new ban does not reach.

Ian Davidson, Acting Returning Officer for Clacton

Davidson's office printed a 90cm ballot paper for the record 34-candidate field, with nothing in electoral law capping candidate numbers or the £500 deposit each pays. He expects the paper's size to raise printing costs and slow the count into the early hours, a strain that follows from the major parties' boycott, not from turnout.

Labour Party

Labour gained Penistone East from Reform on 20 August but lost Harraby South to Reform the same night, a wash that undercuts any claim of momentum. The party can point to beating Reform in a genuinely fought contest, but not to a pattern running only in its favour.

Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats took two of Reform's May wards, Almondbury on 13 August and St Neots Eynesbury on 20 August, the latter on a 29.8-point rise in their own vote share. Both results let the party claim it is the beneficiary when voters turn against Reform, not Labour or the Conservatives.