i steal names from cartoon characters

“The Driver” by Jordan Bolton

Prints and zines available on my Etsy

Recently, Nigel Farage (the Member of Parliament for Clacton, and the frog-faced leader of right-wing fascist party Reform UK) has come under scrutiny for receiving a £5 million "gift" from a crypto billionare, and being unable to give a consistent answer for why. He has denied any wrongdoing, he has threatened reporters for asking questions about the matter, and he is currently under investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commission.

If the Standards Commission finds Farage in breach of conduct, he will likely face a recall election in his district in September. He is unhappy with this possibility, so he has decided to "resign" and trigger a special election now. I say "resign" in quotes because he is standing in said election, and intends to remain in Parliament. Theoretically, winning this election will demonstrate that he has a mandate from the people in his district to continue representing them in spite of the allegations against him.

This is idiotic for several reasons. First, resigning now does not permanently shut down the Standards Commission investigation; if he is re-elected, the Commission can still find against him later on and still force him to face a recall election, meaning the Clacton constituency might have to hold two elections in the space of a few months.

The other problem for Farage is that essentially nobody else is bothering to entertain this farce. No major party is running a candidate against him, arguing that Farage is throwing a tantrum and wasting public money in the process. Only one opponent of note has put their name forward: intergalactic space warrior and perennial satirical candidate Count Binface.

The above image gallery is, at time of writing, the entire slate of candidates for this election.

This gambit has backfired spectacularly on Farage. He thrives on media attention, but with no serious candidates standing, this campaign won't receive any. No journalist who does cover it will bother asking him policy questions, so they will have to ask him about the £5m "gift" instead, which he hates discussing. He cannot run his usual shtick of presenting himself as the "anti-establishment voice", because the only thing more absurd than running against a comedian with a dustbin on his head is referring to said dustbin comedian as an "establishment politician". He cannot even attack Binface for not being local to the district because, to quote Binface himself, Farage "spends more time in America than in Clacton". The whole process will humiliate Farage --doubly so if Binface (as the sole protest candidate) garners a significant portion of the vote -- and one of the few things that fascist politicians cannot stand is humiliation.

Sadly but predictably, Nigel Farage won with 22239 votes (63%), only 1014 votes more than he got at the last general election when there was actual opposition running against him. Count Binface came in second with 9455 votes (27%) -- for context, his previous record in any parliamentary election was 308 (0.6%). None of the other candidates got more than 500 votes.

Emerald moth, Cathydata batina, Geometridae

Found in Central and South America