Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Restore Britain have all ruled out contesting the Clacton by-election.<\/p>\n
The only challenger to so far put their name forward is Count Binface – the pseudonym of comedian Jon Harvey, who regularly takes part in high-profile ballots.<\/p>\n
Asked what his pitch would be to voters in Clacton, he told the Today programme: “Well, I’m not Nigel Farage.”<\/p>\n
He said he would tailor his manifesto to the constituency, but his national policies remain – including a pledge to cap the price of 99 Flakes at 99p.<\/p>\n
The Lib Dems have called on the government to block Farage’s resignation until the standards investigation had concluded. <\/p>\n
The probe, which started in May, has been paused following Farage’s resignation but it could be resumed if he wins the by-election and returns to Parliament.<\/p>\n
One possible outcome of the investigation is a suspension for Farage, which could lead to another by-election. <\/p>\n
SNP MSP Calum Kerr, said: “Nigel Farage debating a bin all summer is a perfect symbol for broken, Brexit Britain.<\/p>\n
“The UK state is in terminal decline and the architect of Brexit scrapping it out with a bin sums up the decay.” <\/p>\n
Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice predicted that the forthcoming Clacton by-election could turn out to be a “damp squib” after other major parties said they will not contest the vote.<\/p>\n
However, he said the move would get Farage “back in the headlines”. <\/p>\n
He added: “Reform are still ahead in the opinion polls, but with the slight boost for Labour in the wake of the resignation of Keir Starmer, and the fact that support for Reform has been edging down slowly. <\/p>\n
“He would be hoping that the publicity will help to push him up.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Restore Britain have all ruled out contesting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-680219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}