Numerous reports emerge from Clacton of deliberate acts of intimidation of voters by Reform activists at polling stations during Thursday’s by-election.
There are claims they were acting like “vigilantes”, demanding to know voters’ home addresses and to see evidence of their ID. But while party representatives are permitted to attend polling stations, their role is strictly informal and limited. They must remain outside the station and may only request to see polling cards from willing voters. Anything more constitutes a potentially serious breach of electoral law.
One voter from Wix reports: “As I walked in, I’m faced with a desk right across the entrance… I asked for him to be moved and was met with quite a lot of agitated hostility. But I stood my ground. Next thing someone walks in wearing a Nigel Farage T-shirt.
“I said to the presiding officer that’s not allowed (I’d covered up my own Count Binface T-shirt) and she didn’t have a clue. Said they had never had tellers before in Wix.”
The voter made sure the Reform teller was moved to the side of the lobby and will report the incident to the Electoral Commission.
A Great Bentley voter reports Reform supporters were crowding the doorway: “Felt quite intimidating”. Party representatives are not permitted in any way to obstruct voters.
Another voter at Frinton reports the same problem. He too complained to the polling officer, who also reportedly didn’t seem to know the rules. This voter too will complain to the Electoral Commission.
A voter in Beaumont found it “really scary” and observes: “This is the face of fascism and totalitarianism – be it extreme right or extreme left. Leave people alone. Stop pressuring your own agenda. We don’t want 1930s Germany OR 1950s USSR.”
Reform supporters have a reputation for being somewhat unruly. (Leaked instructions from Reform bosses this week include “Don’t drink and tweet” and admit that its own members are the biggest threat to the party.) So, we might wonder, dear reader, whether all this skulduggery was the simultaneous and impromptu decision of a few pompous and self-important little men, Brownshirts de nos jours, who at last had the chance to push people around.
However, cynics among the readership might be drawn to believe that this behaviour, seemingly from across the constituency, might not have been purely coincidental.
You may think that. I couldn’t possibly comment.
East Anglia Bylines will be pursuing this story further, and will be approaching Tendring District Council, the Electoral Commission, the police, and of course, Reform. If any reader has further information on this issue, we would be pleased to receive it via email: editor@eastangliabylines.co.uk
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As one of the sages at the Muckrakers reminded us this week, Mark Twain observed: “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”
Even so, the boy Nigel survived, though perhaps he is now regretting the whole thing. His shirking no-show at the count suggests he feels it was perhaps not his finest hour. As Sky points out, Nigel Farage is the first winning candidate not to turn up to an election count since Bobby Sands. And as another of the wise men points out, at least Mr Sands had pressing commitments which detained him elsewhere.
Mr Farage claims he was advised by the police not to appear on grounds of his own safety. But the police have taken umbrage and denied any such thing. So, it appears our Mr Farage had misspoken. (The editor understands that is the polite term.)
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This great apostle of revolt against the establishment cuts an increasingly shabby figure. At least he used to look as though he has reluctantly strayed in from more congenial pursuits on a racecourse, but these days he would be far from the winner’s enclosure. “I didn’t want to resign as your MP and have this by-election. But the political establishment forced it upon me,” sounds increasingly risible, a point not lost on the international media, who are all over the story.
CNN’s headline sums it up best: “Nigel Farage wins election in which his main rival was a trash can.” No doubt Donald Trump will see the funny side, albeit at the expense of Mr Farage.
We can understand his wish to terminate the complexities of the moment, but he is in no position to do so. An awful lot of ordure is presently rumbling down the track. On 7 July, The Times reported that the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner (PSC) was due to interview Mr Farage within a fortnight. Later that day, possibly by coincidence, Mr Farage resigned and demanded a by-election.
But as of Friday morning, the website of the PSC shows that the Rule 5 – failure to register – investigation which was paused for the by-election has now resumed.
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The rest of the candidates were a shambolic lot,most being on the ballot at the demand of their monstrous egos, though no doubt a few thought it was a great wheeze in the pub and regretted it later. So, we take one example. Kai Stephens won 132 votes. Mr Stephens is an idiot, a handicap in almost all the undertakings of life. In a juvenile thirst for adventure, he took up far-right politics as a game, mistaking his own inadequacies for political thought. He appears to have little aptitude, and already at 22 has an extensive history of misadventures, several of which have been reported in this diary.
His exploits in the Clacton by-election exemplify his career so far. He was standing for the British Democrats, having moved recently from the Patriotic Alternative. This week in Clacton he had to be persuaded against setting off fireworks on an old wooden pier and advised by a gentleman from security that letting off fireworks there, especially with everything likely to go up like a firelighter, was not permitted.
Reports tell us there was “a vile torrent of abuse aimed at the pier staff – in full public view – in a place crowded with parents and families”. It is dubious as to the likelihood of his performance garnering too many extra votes to his cause.
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Meanwhile, according to two polls this week Reform’s support plunges again. Lord Ashcroft’s analysis suggests the party has lost 3% in a week, to 18% – leaving the party in third place behind the newly resurgent Labour (27%) and the Tories (23%) – both up.
Then YouGov showed them falling to second place with 22%, behind Labour on 24%. In some ways, though, most intriguing are the Tories. They must also see the growing support among the electorate for a return to the EU, yet like Labour under Keir Starmer, they refuse to confront what they are being told. Instead, they continue to ape Reform and their extremist policies. Kemi Badenoch (NW Essex) now demands all prospective Tory politicians, including sitting MPs, must align with a strict policy mandate to scrap the UK’s 2050 net zero target and leave the ECHR.
So, their concentration still appears to be on not losing votes to Reform, whereas millions of their lost supporters are waiting in the centre ground, frustrated and abandoned, for the Tories to wake up and smell the coffee.
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Speaking of which, a KCL-Ipsos poll this week finds 31% of voters say they would consider voting Labour in the next election…
But if Labour’s manifesto offered a referendum on rejoining the EU, this rises to 45%.
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At this juncture an apology seems appropriate. This diary was never intended to catalogue exclusively the sordid failings of a scrofulous far right party. But we are where we are, and with everybody else at the beach (including apparently the entire Labour Party communications team, hrrrumph), this week the only alternative would be to fill the diary with holiday snaps from the wise men, or an anthology of Welsh proverbs.
Anyway.
Conservatives, Reform and Restore have been showing each other a teasing glimpse of ankle in recent weeks, only to offer a slap in the face at the slightest twirling of a moustache. My dears, just ignore them. Now repeat after me: ‘The revolution always eats its children’. Both Tories and Reform look over their shoulders at what Rupert Lowe (Gt Yarmouth) is up to, but this week that would have been his plan to take an axe to 25 years of legislation, on the grounds that “Britain worked far better a generation ago”.
So presumably, candidates for repeal would include all equality legislation (like equal pay for women and rights for the disabled); bosses could dismiss employees on a whim, harassment would be permitted, there would be no minimum wage, the age of consent for homosexuals would be increased, foreign terrorists could run amok, only married couples could adopt children (and of course the married couples would have to be heterosexual – no homosexual marriages or partnerships either); money laundering would become free and easy, data privacy would be oot the windy and landlords could charge tenants what they like.
One piece of legislation that Mr Lowe would be horrified to see repealed, however, might be the European Union (Withdrawal) Act.
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Zia Yusuf is an unhappy fellow – one might say embittered with unsatisfied ambition. His political career thus far has been uniformly unsuccessful. He is at poisonous odds with many of those at Reform’s top table, nobody will give him a constituency to fight; and now he has been publicly slapped down by his party leader.
Mr Yusuf declared Reform would “crack down” on firms employing immigrants with no right to work in this country… only to have it pointed out that the law exists already.
Then he called former Conservative defence secretary Ben Wallace a “traitor” and was rebuked by Mr Farage. But Mr Yusuf has still not deleted the offending post. Mr Farage may not have noticed the snub, since he was busy declaring a new policy of sending foreign criminals to El Salvador. Only, it turns out it is exactly the same policy he announced in July last year. (Well, there was a chance nobody would have noticed.) My dears, poor Nigel is living on his nerves.
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Pecksniff has reported recently on the mystery behind the sudden departure of the chief executive of Norfolk County Council. But now there is a second mystery: why the council has appointed as his successor a man who has never even worked in local government, not even making the tea.
He is Dennis Bacon, a Norwich businessman and former director of Apple Homecare Ltd, whose most recent CQC rating was “Requires improvement”.
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Then there is Suffolk County Council, which is about to blow £500,000 of taxpayers’ money on challenging the government’s plans for local government reorganisation. The Reform-led council is accusing the government of acting unlawfully; only, a report to the Reform cabinet by its own monitoring officer claims the decision they took to take the government to court was itself unlawful…
The claim is in a ‘Section 5A’ report, which is intended to stop potentially illegal activity with immediate effect. Only, this report has apparently been delayed until October, which appears to make a nonsense of the idea. Somebody in Westminster is not going to be happy about all this…
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This week’s smooth operators and souls of discretion were Liz Crosbie, Celina Błędowska, Malcolm Lynn, Mark Cunliffe, John Elworthy, James Porter and Stace Richards.
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