But Farage ran for Parliament while holding the position.
It only disqualifies him if he wins.
Which is kind of hilarious because from what I have read, Clacton is one of the least ethnically-diverse areas in England. It is strange to me (although not unheard of, according to an AI summary) for people to blame immigrants for all the problems in an area that doesn’t have any immigrants.
Same reason large cities in America tend to vote Democratic/liberal - when you actually live and work alongside people of different races and ethnicities you get to see that they’re people just like you with the same problems you have, not some abstract boogeyman.
Holding the position doesn’t disqualify you from contesting an election, as witness the fact that Farage is contesting an election right now. If (when, actually) Farage wins the election someone else will be appointed to the position he now holds, so that he can be sworn in as a member of Parliament.
Does continuing to hold the position even matter? Back when ministerial by-elections were required, the whole deal was that an appointment to an office removed an MP from the Commons, but they could continue to hold that office after they were re-elected.
True, but he can’t be sworn in as an MP while he holds that title.
But that is trivially easy to circumvent. All he has to do is to resign as steward of Northstead. There is no requirement that there must always be someone holding that office. And there is a direct precedent. David Davis resigned as steward of the Chiltern Hundreds in 2008 when he pulled a similar stunt.
(quoting the Guardian)
Well they do deserve him. It’s not like it wasn’t clear what he was like from the start.
I can understand not wanting to vote for a joke candidate but they’ve only themselves to blame that this is the situation they’re in.,
Anyhoo: today’s the day.
On a side note, Bluesky has been taking some flack for listing “Farage wins Clacton” in their Trending feed immediately after polls opened this morning. I’m not sure whether this is driven by bot activity or by the site itself, but it’s not going unnoticed.
When will they learn. [1]
Same with brexit. Every single farridge supporter will vote for him. Not every
non-farridge voter will vote. Farridge wins.
rhetorical question ↩︎
since the polls opened the odds for Binface have been gradually shortening (from 50/1 to 40/1 so still a longshot, but the momentum is with the bin.)
Does Charlie have to pay that salary out of his own pocket?
People are deriding Clacton because they have repeatedly elected a joke candidate. They’re the butt of a joke because they have themselves decided to be the butt of a joke. I get that not everyone there voted for him, but those of them who didn’t should be blaming their neighbors, not the rest of the world who didn’t vote Farage.
A reminder of the list of candidates:
The “Everyone is God Party” sounds fun.
ETA: I hope the Returns Officer has the stamina to read off the results. It’s going to take ages.
Still can’t believe the OMRLP is voluntarily splitting their vote like that. It’s like they aren’t taking this exercise in democracy seriously.
Is this a FPTP election or do they do some kind of runoff? When will we start getting results?
:
okay, so may a non-Brit ask a silly question?
Of those 35 candidates* , why are they running? (oops, I should say “standing” in Brit-speak)
I assume they are all totally unknowns as public figures; do they think that winning 1 or 2 percent of the vote will accomplish anything?
..
.
^ (other than the Loony Party and the God Party, which the Yankees should envy–America needs to learn to laugh at itself)
Tis FPTP. Polls should close 10pm BST. Dunno if they’ll announce overnight or tomorrow morning.
Standing in a highly publicised by-election can be a good way of getting cheap publicity for a cause. If it’s one or two randoms trying to get attention for a cause, it can work really well; they’re likely to get interviews in local papers and maybe even make it to the national news. In this instance that’s not really happening, as there’s just too many of them, and the limelight is well and truly hogged anyway.
There’s probably also a decent sprinkling of the delusionally optimistic who see no further than ‘The only other real candidates are an arse and a bin! I have a real chance, with my fully costed manifesto to fund the economy by taxing [honestly, could be anything]!’
Well, Laurence Fox used to co-star in popular detective show “Lewis”, before revealing himself to be deeply toxic. But otherwise, yes, they’re pretty much unknown.
The author of that opinion piece isn’t blaming the rest of the world. She is saying that her town has been turned into a circus, first by Farage and now by the media, and it really sucks. When my trans friend complains about Trump and the Republicans, I don’t tell them that they decided to be the butt of horrible joke; I offer some sympathy.
I started out thinking everyone should vote for Binface as a great protest. But I’ve come around to the author’s position, that refusing to participate is the best move. This by-election is a stupid joke and Binface running was a perfect response to it. But Binface was never going to actually win, and if by some miracle he did win, it wouldn’t be a victory for democracy or normalcy, it would just be the perpetuation of a joke. The only winning move is not to play.