Can Nigel Farage Make It Eighth Time Lucky in Clacton?

by Roy Brindley, 7 June 2024

At an eighth attempt, Nigel Farage will become an MP at the next general election. That is the view of bookmakers who rate his probability of winning Clacton’s parliamentary seat on odds of 2/7. At the last general election, the Conservatives won the constituency by a landslide margin. Nevertheless, the price suggests a 77.8 percent chance of Farage finally entering Parliament.

Nigel Farage addresses people gathered outside Clacton Pier, where the odds suggest locals will become his new constituents following the July 4 general election. ©Getty

The longstanding face of Euroscepticism in the UK, Farage campaigned for Brexit as leader of UKIP and, following the country’s decision to leave the European Union in 2016, declared June 23rd would “go down in our history as our Independence Day”. Ironically, Farage, a close friend and ally of former US President Donald Trump, will ask Clacton’s voters to tick his box on July 4th.

60-year-old Farage stood down from UKIP in December 2018. He returned to frontline politics by launching the Brexit Party months later. It would rebrand as Reform UK in 2020, but by 2021, Farage resigned as the party’s leader – becoming its honorary president – and he began a TV career.

Two days after the general election was announced, Farage took to X (formerly Twitter) to say he would not stand in the general election. “I will do my bit to help in the campaign [for Reform], but it is not the right time for me to go any further than that,” Farage said on the social media platform. Odds compilers at general election betting sites were rightly sceptical.

A Week Is a Long Time in Farage’s World

By June 3rd, Farage, who was a longstanding Member of the European Parliament, announced he had made a U-turn because of a “terrible sense of guilt” towards people who had supported his past political projects. “Difficult though it is, I can’t let down those millions of people; I simply can’t do it; it’d be wrong,” he said when announcing his intention to run for Parliamentary membership.

Reinstating himself as leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage declared he would be his party’s candidate for Clacton. Political betting sites introduced him on 4/9 odds to win the seat. Some election bookmakers are now quoting the former “I’m a Celebrity” contestant on 1/4. Giles Watling, the Conservative MP who has held the seat since 2017, is 7/2.

The Clacton Faithful to Champion Farage

Under Douglas Carswell, Clacton was one of only two parliamentary seats ever won in by-elections by Farage’s former party, UKIP, ten years ago. It was also the only seat the party retained in 2015’s general election. On the first occasion, Carswell took 59.7 percent of the vote. A 44.4 percent vote share gave UKIP a 16.3-point victory over the Tories in 2015.

That year, UKIP claimed 3.9 million votes – 12.6 percent of the total votes cast – in the general election. In 2016, more than 70 percent of voters in the Clacton constituency backed Brexit in the referendum. It was the fifth highest figure in the UK, and it is the stat that made Farage’s choice to run in the Essex constituency a ‘no brainer’.

‘I don’t know what was thrown at me but it hit me in the face fair and square. Quite frightening’@Nigel_Farage tells @harry_horton he believes he keeps having milkshakes thrown at him because he goes ‘out to meet the public and nobody else does’ https://t.co/ALgqNt5jvP pic.twitter.com/0QT5KoP3qA

— ITV News Politics (@ITVNewsPolitics) June 4, 2024

If Farage were a racehorse, form students would call him a “winner in waiting” as the politician is rising up the popularity rankings. Even a milkshake thrown over him while campaigning in Clacton served to earn news headlines of the variety that tends to win votes.

Nigel Farage Election/Results Timeline:

Farage does have to overcome an established rival in his quest to take a seat in Parliament. Clacton’s MP, Tory Giles Watling, has held the seat for seven years, winning elections in 2017 and 2019. With no UKIP or Brexit Party candidate standing in 2019, Watling took 72.3 percent of the vote, giving him a majority of 24,702.

Reflecting on Farage’s quest for Clacton’s seat, Mr Watling, a former actor now aged 71, told the BBC: “I will be pleased to show Nigel around Clacton so he can see what it is really like, but I am not prepared to see the constituency of Clacton sacrificed on the altar of his vanity!”

The Odds Are Reform UK Will Split the Tory Vote

Political observers had previously suggested a prominent role for Mr Farage in the general election campaign could damage the Tories. Even before Mr Farage’s declaration, a YouGov MRP poll indicated the Conservative Party was on course for its worst election defeat in its 346-year history.

The poll suggested Labour would have a 194 majority, with 422 seats, compared to the Tories on just 140 and Lib Dems on 48. However, Nigel Farage’s decision to stand as a candidate in the general election is predicted to split the Tory vote and give Reform UK a considerable boost.

Before the first week of Farage’s canvasing was complete, figures from a Techne UK poll of 1,645 people suggested the Conservatives would be reduced to being the third party on 35 seats according to Electoral Calculus. Labour would have a majority of 396, while the Lib Dems would get 54 seats and be the official opposition.

Of those questioned, less than four-in-10 (38 percent) of Conservative 2019 general election voters still back the party. Twenty-three percent have defected to a Farage-led Reform UK, which is now predicted to win 15 percent of the general election’s total votes.

Betting sites have reacted by slashing the odds of the Conservative Party winning between 50-99 seats into 6/4 from 3/1. 100-149 seats, a 9/4 shot when the markets opened, have also contracted in price. It is now a 13/8 proposition. Even the odds on 49 or fewer seats has been halved in price from the 12/1 available in late May. Kier Starmer’s next Prime Minister betting odds are currently 1/33.