Skip to content
You can now search across every topic, entity and event.What's new
UK Local Elections 2026
23AUG

Clacton by-election set for 13 August

1 min read
19:09UTC

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.

← Back to Reform loses three wards, wins ClactonJump to analysis ↓
PoliticsDeveloping
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
Read original →
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
Read story →
Every party but Binface boycotts Farage
The contest is shaped by the major parties' earlier decision not to stand candidates.
Occurred 7 Jul 2026
Read story →
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 →
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
Read story →
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
Read story →
Different Perspectives
Ian Davidson, Acting Returning Officer for Clacton
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.
Scottish Labour members
Scottish Labour members
Members now choose between Michael Marra and Joe Fagan after Monica Lennon fell one MP nomination short of the three-MP, three-MSP threshold, a bar set by MPs and union officials rather than the wider membership. Whoever wins takes office having faced only one rival on the members' ballot.
Labour Party
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
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.
Reform UK
Reform UK
Reform UK can point to winning Clacton unopposed by the other major parties and to taking Harraby South from Labour, a ward it had never previously contested. That gives the party two results to cite even as three previously held wards changed hands elsewhere in August.
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin
Sinn Féin's John O'Dowd ruled out a Stormont walkout on 11 August despite calling the DUP increasingly difficult to work with, closing a question Conor Murphy had left open a fortnight earlier. Only Sinn Féin or the DUP can collapse the joint First Minister office, so the denial gives up the party's own leverage in budget talks.