‘Farage our saviour?’ Divisive Brit’s bid to win over his country’s worst resort town

Clacton-on-Sea: It’s the home to some of the men and women who sank Europe.

Eight years ago, this British seaside village in Essex, the butt of endless jokes and often referred to as the UK’s worst resort town, posted one of the highest “leave” votes in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

About 70 per cent of people here wanted to get out of the European Union and “take back control” of their laws and borders, earning it the title of “the town that delivered Brexit”.

A view over Clacton-on Sea, the seaside town where Nigel Farage is running as a candidate.Credit: Getty Images

Now this town, about 90 minutes on a train north-east of London, has returned to the front line of British politics as the launching pad for Nigel Farage, and his new insurgent party Reform UK, that is railing against immigration and climate policies and promises to upend next week’s general election.

Farage, who has endured his toughest week of the campaign amid fierce scrutiny of his past glowing praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin, calls this place “the end of the line”, but also a place where its 53,000 residents feel “very, very, English”.

“There is obviously some mourning for the glory days of the seaside,” the 60-year-old likes to say.

After three weeks of intense media coverage, people here on a sunny morning when this reporter arrives, don’t feel too much like talking politics.

“We’ve had just about every news crew in Britain come here and try and put shit on us all,” says Dermott Symon, a local, who isn’t keen on posing for a photo and says he’s late for his Sunday lunch at the pub.

A man sits outside a pub in Clacton-on-Sea.Credit: Getty Images

“Is Nigel Farage our saviour? I am not sure about that. But is he worse than any of the others?”

Despite some small pockets of wealth, Clacton is a highly deprived town and a rather elderly one. Almost 30 per cent of people are aged over 65 and not to mention extremely white (95.3 per cent).

It has the highest levels of economic inactivity of any constituency in England and Wales, at 51 per cent, indicating a community in very poor health. It’s led to plenty of accusations that Farage, who lives in Kent, in south-east England, is cynically parachuting in to exploit them with his special brand of right-wing populist politics.

Since he announced his candidacy three weeks ago, Farage’s numbers have soared and has even outperformed all other parties and candidates on TikTok, eclipsing politicians previously considered most popular among young people.

Narrowing in on an apathetic generation, Farage has also appeared on podcasts aimed at young men and created videos showing him mouthing Eminem lyrics.

Despite having tried and failed seven times to be elected to Britain’s parliament, Farage remains one of the country’s most recognisable British political figures, having moved between politics and media roles and between political parties during his career.

He is close to former US president Donald Trump and until recently was going to prioritise Trump’s re-election bid over the UK campaign.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is making his eighth attempt at winning a seat in the British parliament. Credit: Getty Images

Farage has learnt plenty from the Trump playbook and has leaned into a row on divisive topics as a way of getting more exposure.

Clacton is also the only place in Britain ever to have elected a member of Farage’s previous parties, UKIP at a general election, when the Tory defector Douglas Carswell was re-elected in 2015.

He’s hoping it can deliver him to parliament, and with a win, a broader political earthquake.

“Is this not the most patriotic town in the whole of our country?” he bellowed from Clacton Pier earlier this month when launching his campaign, adding he would be a “bloody nuisance” in Westminster if he succeeds in becoming an MP at his eighth attempt.

“We are going to get a Labour government. Whether you like it or not, we are going to get a Labour government – the question is, who is going to be the voice of opposition?”

In recent days, attacks have been unleashed on Farage from all corners after he sparked a wave of criticism at the weekend when he said the “ever eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union” provoked Putin to launch his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

A Reform Party volunteer is ignored in Clacton-on-Sea.Credit: Getty Images

Former prime minister Boris Johnson, once a friendly ally of the fellow Brexiteer, was the chief attack dog, dismissing Farage’s argument as “nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda”.

Under Johnson in 2019, the Tories won two-thirds of coastal seats like this one. Giles Watling, the Conservative incumbent in Clacton, was elected with 72 per cent of the vote. In normal times, his 25,000 majority would be almost unassailable.

But last year the right-leaning think tank, Onward, warned that the party needed to do more to help struggling seaside towns or risk a political “tidal wave”.

It found that people living within nine kilometres of England’s coast had disposable incomes that were on average £2800 ($5300) lower than those living inland, a gap that had been widening since the 2008 financial crisis.

“What has happened?” Farage asked at his launch. “The Conservatives have betrayed that trust. They’ve opened up the borders to mass immigration like we’ve never seen before.”

Net migration to the UK dropped 10 per cent to 685,000 in 2023, compared with a year earlier, but remained above average historical levels. The majority of people travelled for work or to study, with far fewer, a number of 29,437 last year, arriving via the perilous journey across the Channel from France.

A man walks past the “Upside Down House” in Clacton-on-Sea.Credit: Getty Images

But migration is a central issue for voters across the political spectrum, especially after the Conservatives failed on their promise to “stop the boats” and deport illegal migrants to Rwanda.

During a speech made atop a campaign bus in Maidstone, Kent’s largest town, Farage blamed immigration for rising rent prices, worse traffic, a strain on social housing and hospital waiting times.

“It’s simple: demand, supply,” he said.

Reform UK’s rise has come at the same time as the Tories, after 14 years in power, are mired in the polls. They held out hope that support might improve during the campaign, but their poll numbers have gone backwards as the election date of July 4 nears.

According to YouGov data, collected after Farage re-took charge, shows that despite the large majority of Reform UK voters backing the Conservatives in 2019 (68 per cent), very few are likely to be convinced to return to the Tories this time round. Reform UK are standing candidates in nearly all constituencies, and the data shows that even if they were to stand down, just 36 per cent of their voters say they would switch to the Conservatives.

Adam McDonnell, YouGov’s research director of political and social research, said instead, 6 per cent would vote Labour, the same proportion would go to the Liberal Democrats, 4 per cent would switch to the Greens, and 12 per cent to another party.

More than a quarter (26 per cent) simply would not vote.

Even still Reform UK, is unlikely to win more than a handful of seats under a first-past-the-post electoral system that punishes smaller parties.

Pauline McGinty, who owns the Jolly Roger restaurant on Clacton Pier, says Farage’s decision to contest her local constituency means she will vote.

“I’ve probably always voted Tory, but this year I was probably not going to vote at all. I always liked Boris Johnson, but ever since they threw him out they lost the plot.”

She says Farage is “well-liked” in town and is a “straight-talker.”

Nigel Farage plays on a game in an amusement arcade while spending time with supporters in Clacton-on-Sea.Credit: AP

“He likes his pint of beer and a cigar. He will definitely win here. He’s not snobby like the others who’ve got so much money. I’ve said it before but they don’t even know how much a loaf of bread is.”

Toby James, professor of politics and public policy at the University of East Anglia, says Farage’s “simple narratives” are gaining traction, with the economic context driving voters towards Reform.

“The UK has gone through a cost of living crisis. Real wages have declined for many people following record levels of inflation, and prices have not declined. The cash in the pocket isn’t going as far as it once did and this is affecting the everyday.”

He says Farage has presented a simple narrative about immigration being at the core of the problem while both Labour and the Conservatives also stress that they too would reduce it.

“There is therefore no strong counter-narrative in the electoral campaign about the economic advantages of immigration, EU membership and the more complex factors which shape the UK’s economic fortunes,” he says.

“It is remarkable that the broad international context in which the UK finds itself is not part of the discussion. This can only strengthen the Reform story.”

Farage tells anyone who’ll listen in Clacton that there’s “a big change happening”.

Most have heard it before. Will they buy it this time?

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