Nigel Farage may have landed himself in a humiliating contest with Count Binface
NIGEL FARAGE’S desperate by-election gambit has descended into farce as his Reform party was rocked by fresh funding revelations.
It emerged that the Reform boss’s £5 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, and other cash for the party, was referred to the National Crime Agency as suspicious.
Labour Party chair Anna Turley called the news “astonishing and deeply serious” and called on Mr Farage to “come clean and co-operate” with the agency.
The fresh scandal about Mr Farage’s funding, first reported by the Guardian, came as he faced the prospect of a hot summer campaigning to keep his Clacton seat in the face of a challenge by Count Binface.
The perennial comedy candidate was the only confirmed opponent to Mr Farage in the by-election he provoked to regain control of a media narrative over sleaze which was gradually paralysing his political operation.
However, the Tories, Labour, Greens, Liberal Democrats and Restore parties all called Reform’s bluff by confirming that they would not stand in the by-election, describing it as a farce.
The local Green party was the last to declare its abstention, issuing a statement saying “we have no intention of helping to legitimise a by-election that appears designed not to serve local residents but to serve Nigel Farage’s personal political ambitions.
“This contest is not about the people of Clacton. It is about one politician placing himself at the centre of a media spectacle and expecting local residents to play supporting roles in a drama of his own making.”
Reform 2025 Ltd’s Director Nigel Farage discusses his five million pounds gift from Crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. He tells nosey parkers to mind their own business and suggests that you don’t entertain the notion that even some of it could be dirty money from international money laundering. FM, I’ve done it again
People keep asking why I’m standing in the Clacton by-election, and the answer is simple.
This is no ordinary election. This is me versus The Establishment.
On one side, there’s me: a self-funded independent in a shiny bin, taking on the political machine armed with little more than a manifesto and several kilos of reinforced aluminium.
On the other side, there’s Nigel Farage.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Surely Nigel Farage is the anti-establishment candidate?”
Well, he was. Then he spent thirty years becoming the establishment.
When you’ve got billionaire donors, wealthy financiers, television studios, newspaper columns, a party built around your own personality and enough millionaire backers to make a yacht club feel underfunded, you don’t really get to call yourself the outsider any more.
I, meanwhile, remain proudly unsupported by foreign-based billionaires, convicted fraudsters or cryptocurrency tycoons. If anyone has been secretly wiring millions into my campaign account, I can assure you they’ve used the wrong account number.
Nigel says this election is about letting the people decide whether he should be allowed to carry on secretly enriching himself in the shadows and doing whatever Nigel Farage wants Nigel Farage to do. I couldn’t agree more. That’s exactly the sort of thing The Establishment always says.
Nigel Farage explains that he’s called another byelection in Clacton-on-Sea because he should be able to secretly enrich himself without scrutiny and accountabilty and that the rules shouldn’t apply to him.
Count Binface at the vote counting for the Makerfield by-election (Reuters)
The Tories, Lib Dems, Greens and Labour have all announced that they will not stand in the by-election with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch describing it as “fake” and Sir Keir Starmer calling it “a desperate political stunt”.
Count Binface, who has become a cult figure in elections up and down the UK, posted on X with a picture similar to the Batman symbol used to call the superhero into action, with the words “On my way, Clacton.”
The comedian, … an “independent space warrior” and wears a bin on his head, has contested a number of elections, most recently the by-election in Makerfield, where he received 95 votes.
On X on Tuesday, the count wrote: “Any Clacton residents who want to nominate your friendly neighbourhood intergalactic space warrior, ping me a line!”
…
The … candidate has pledged to make corners in football properly refereed, end subsidy for food and drink in parliament, conscript people who play loud music on public transport and force cyclists who break the highway code to ride unicycles instead.
…
Count Binface has become a focus of a potential tactical voting campaign to oust Mr Farage.
It comes as supporters of Mr Farage insist that he has not made a fool of himself despite the other political parties refused to stand against him. [Is that not grammatically correct? despite that?]
Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
“With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months.”
A new report released Wednesday shows that surface temperatures of the world’s oceans hit a record for June, sparking fresh warnings of grave “consequences for weather patterns, global climate and marine ecosystems” across the globe.
The analysis by the European Union’s Copernicus Marine Service, and confirmed by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), finds that “record global sea surface temperatures” of 21.0° Celsius (69.8° Fahrenheit) in June of 2026 beat the previous record in the same month broken in 2023 and again in 2024.
C3S director Carlo Buontempo warned that the “current conditions” of the oceans “could indicate the beginning of a new phase, leading, once more, to uncharted territory.”
“With ocean temperatures at these levels and El Niño on the horizon, we are likely to see more temperature records fall in the coming months,” Buontempo warned. “That Copernicus Marine data reaches the same conclusion through independent methods speaks to the strength of European science—and to why open, robust data matters now more than ever.”
According to a statement from Copernicus, warmer oceans have wide-ranging impacts on natural systems and human infrastructure, noting that “higher ocean temperatures keep the atmosphere warm for longer, provide extra energy to storms and increase evaporation, thus enhancing the potential for extreme precipitation and flooding. Ocean warming also contributes to sea level rise and ice melt, and stresses marine ecosystems.”
With the onset of a new El Niño cycle—which tends to trigger more pronounced weather events worldwide—the continued increase of ocean temperatures is a serious concern of scientists.
Wednesday’s report on ocean temperatures also arrives as record-breaking heat waves hit both Europe and North America, offering more evidence of the perils of an ever-hotter world that is being pushed to the brink by the burning of fossil fuels and the failure of governments worldwide to finally act against the fossil fuel industry that is driving the crisis.
Surging ocean surface temperatures are “not unexpected,” Michael Meredith, an ocean scientist at the British Antarctic Survey, told CNN in response to the Copernicus report. “But the pace of warming we are now seeing is alarming.”
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.Orcas comment on killer apes destroying the planet by continuing to burn fossil fuels.
UK newspapers have already published 63 editorials this year calling for more oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
The national outlets, including the Sun, the Daily Telegraph and the Times, argue that the nation “needs” more North Sea drilling to provide “home-sourced oil and gas” amid a “full-blown energy crisis”.
These newspapers seek to blame energy secretary Ed Miliband’s “net-zero crusade” for curbing UK fossil-fuel production – despite supplies dwindling for decades before he took the role.
The push for North Sea drilling in newspaper editorials – considered a publication’s formal “voice” – is part of a wider rejection of net-zero policies by the UK’s right-leaning press.
Figures ranging from ex-Labour prime minister Tony Blair to hard-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage have repeated similar arguments that more drilling will “boost” the UK economy.
Even US president Donald Trump has weighed in, attributing, in part, the resignation of Keir Starmer as UK prime minister to him “fail[ing] badly” on North Sea oil.
Despite these claims, experts say trying to extract the last barrels of domestic oil and gas would have no impact on people’s energy bills and very little effect on energy security.
More drilling
North Sea oil and gas production is a highly politically charged issue in the UK, especially under the current Labour government.
When Labour won the general election in 2024, the new government committed to a “phased and responsible” transition away from fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea.
As part of this pledge, it ruled out issuing new exploration licences for oil and gas. Since then, the government has allowed some “tiebacks”, where new drilling is undertaken close to existing sites.
Roughly 90% of the fossil fuels that are likely to be extracted in the North Sea have already been burned. North Sea oil and gas extraction was, therefore, already on a clear downward trajectory long before Labour came to power, having dropped 75% between 2000 and 2024.
Nevertheless, many newspapers have relentlessly called for more oil and gas production, framing the Labour policy as “self-destructive” and compromised by “green ideology”.
This has ramped up significantly in 2026. Just six months into the year, newspapers have already published 63 pro-North Sea editorials, according to analysis by Carbon Brief. This is more than double the number published in 2025, as shown in the figure below.
Cumulative number of UK newspaper editorials supporting more fossil-fuel extraction in the North Sea in 2025 (blue) and January-June 2026 (red). Source: Carbon Brief analysis.
Right-leaning newspapers have led this campaign, with the Sun alone publishing 25 editorials, while the Daily Telegraph and the Times have published 10 each.
‘Full-blown energy crisis’
The biggest surge in pro-North Sea drilling editorials came in March, as the Iran war escalated and a global energy crisis began to take shape. Newspapers published 24 such editorials that month, despite the crisis largely arising from the world’s reliance on fossil fuels.
The Daily Express said the UK needed more “home-sourced oil and gas” and the Daily Mail highlighted the “perverse limit on domestic fossil-fuel production”.
As the weeks progressed, the Sun lamented price rises and potential fuel shortages, proposing North Sea drilling as a solution to the “full-blown energy crisis”.
Yet, UK oil and gas is sold by private companies on the open market at international rates. This means UK consumers have no particular right to the fuels or control over the prices they are bought for.
The Sun claimed – without evidence – that if the North Sea had been prioritised, the UK “might just have the cheapest electricity in the world”. It also said net-zero “forces us to spend billions” on imports.
In fact, the UK’s high energy prices are primarily the result of its reliance on gas to generate electricity.
The nation is reliant on oil and gas imports, in part, because the North Sea is a “mature basin” that saw its output collapse long before the UK even had a net-zero target.
Renewables and low-carbon technologies – often dismissed by the same newspapers – are expected to have a far greater impact on cutting imports than new drilling ever could.
Miliband’s ‘crusade’
Much of the criticism by these newspapers of Labour’s North Sea stance is tied to their highly personal criticism of Miliband. Of the 63 editorials arguing for more drilling, nearly three-quarters also attacked him as a “net-zero zealot” on a “green crusade”.
The Times said the energy and net-zero secretary was pursuing a “masochistic policy” by not expanding North Sea drilling and that he had “cloaked his zealotry in spurious rationality”.
This all fits with a broader trend that has seen right-leaning newspapers launch frequent, personal attacks on Miliband.
In the roughly two years since Labour won the election, giving the government a clear mandate for its net-zero policies, there have been around 230 editorials criticising Miliband.
(These have redoubled in recent days, amid rumours that he may be made chancellor under Andy Burnham, if the new Makerfield MP becomes the next prime minister, as is widely expected.)
Such attacks have increasingly spilled over into politics. Conservative shadow energy secretary Claire Coutinho has accused Miliband of “fanaticism” and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has even likened him to a “Nigerian military dictator”.
The newspapers have also interpreted any support for North Sea drilling as a rebuke of Miliband. Both the Sun and the Daily Telegraph welcomed an essay by Blair, in which he argued that “we must…use what is left of our North Sea oil and gas resources”.
The Sun heralded Blair as Labour’s “most successful election winner” and said he “nailed the chief mistakes” of the current government, including:
“Allowing Ed Miliband free rein on net-zero – especially the banning of North Sea drilling.”
Several of the newspapers have also thrown their support behind the Conservative party, as it frames itself as an anti-net-zero, pro-fossil fuel alternative to Labour.
The Daily Mail described Badenoch’s proposal to drill more in the North Sea as a “concrete plan”, while the Sun – in an echo of Trump’s slogan – has simply urged her to “drill, Kemi, drill”.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him and his Deputy Richard Tice. He says that Reform UK has received £Millions and £Millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.UK Conservative Party leader Kemi ‘not a genocide’ Badenoch explains her reality that the Earth is flat, the Moon is made of cheese and that she was born from Unicorn horn dustElon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Nigel Farage may have landed himself in a humiliating contest with Count Binface
