Why Nigel Farage’s path to power runs through a rainswept seaside town

CLACTON-ON-SEA, England — Icy rain is falling on the faded Essex seaside town of Clacton, but Nigel Farage is grinning as he throws an arm around Santa in a makeshift grotto in an old sea cadet center.

Next, the upstart Brexiteer and political disrupter poses with a gaggle of beauty salon staff, praising their festive charity giving. Then he’s temperately sipping locally distilled gin. He had been due to ceremonially cut the ribbon for the start of Christmas late night shopping, but high winds put paid to that.

In other words: Nigel Farage is doing the normal things voters expect an MP in Britain to do. 

The leader of the insurgent Reform U.K. party is at pains to let his constituents on the Essex coast know he’s not shunning the humdrum to rub shoulders with Donald Trump in the U.S, or skipping Commons votes in favor of his highly paid job as a television presenter.

That’s a narrative his aides are wary of allowing to set in. Farage has been a member of parliament for only six months but he’s already visited the States five times, to catch up with the president-elect or take part in Republican and other conservative events.

In a bid to prove the new MP’s feet remain firmly on the ground, POLITICO was invited along to Clacton, a two hour drive from Westminster on the U.K’s eastern edge as it juts into the North Sea, on a drizzly Saturday in December to observe Farage as a local MP in action. Far from Mar-a-Lago and the TV studios, meeting constituents and touring the prosaic amenities, Farage could — almost — be mistaken for any other British parliamentarian.

Growing wary

Keir Starmer may have won a huge majority in July, but as his center-left Labour Party continues to slump in the polls the prime minister and his team are growing more wary of the threat Farage’s populist movement poses. Reform won 14 percent of the vote in the general election, but walked away with just five MPs because of the U.K’s first-past-the-post system.

However, it came second in another 98 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, including 89 won by Labour. That means that while the Conservatives were hit hardest by Reform’s success last time out, it’s the ruling party that’s now feeling vulnerable in the long run up to the next election, not due for another four-and-a-half years.

Farage told a glitzy Westminster awards ceremony held by the conservative Spectator magazine last week that next time around he’ll secure “hundreds” of new MPs in what he’s terming a “political revolution.”

Three Cabinet ministers from the now-ruling Labour Party, all granted anonymity in order to speak frankly, told POLITICO one way Reform might falter was if Farage and his colleagues failed to show they were decent representatives for their constituents. “They might crash and burn,” said one.

The imperative for hard graft in order to succeed electorally one of the few things Farage agrees with them on. “They’re 100 percent right on that,” he told POLITICO from Clacton’s Royal Hotel, the beachfront building where Farage is setting up his constituency office.

“The reason people are voting for us, and joining us, is they think we can change things,” Farage said, seated below a ceiling covered with white and pink plastic flowers. “If we can show in office that we are able to change things … then they’ll go on voting for us in bigger and bigger numbers.”

The new MP has now purchased a house in the constituency, albeit in one of the leafier areas some way from Jaywick, the former holiday resort on the edge of town frequently cited as among the most deprived places in Britain.

Nothing a little botox can’t fix

One of reasons he was ostensibly visiting the beauty salon was to hear about the boxes of presents the owner was donating to deprived children in the area. The MP, in his trademark tweed jacket and flat cap, stood by a sign saying “nothing a little botox and filler can’t fix,” and offered to donate a batch of apple juice made by a farmer closer to where he really lives in Kent.

The juice was branded “Farage,” in an advertising exercise reminiscent of Trump’s. It may not be the Covid relief checks brandishing the then-president’s name that were sent out to millions of Americans, but the apple juice dropped at food banks for the hungry is a canny way of showing who’s behind the help being offered. 

Farage is now writing a weekly column in the Clacton Gazette, with express orders from the editor to focus on local issues — though proving there is always a local angle, one of his articles is on why “Donald Trump’s win is good for Clacton.”

He’s faced some heat for not holding in-person surgeries to listen to constituents’ concerns. Farage argues this is in part down to security fears (the Conservative MP David Amess was fatally stabbed by an Islamist extremist while holding a surgery just down the coast in 2021.)

He also suggested his reluctance to meet constituents in person was fueled by the perils of having a famous face. “Otherwise, I’m a celebrity sitting in a room with people coming to see me about things that are not even relevant to being an MP,” he told POLITICO. 

Farage said he was instead doing a series of Zoom meetings with those who genuinely need his help and has hired a caseworker to tackle their problems, as other MPs do.

Our interview was briefly interrupted by a phone call. “Please hold for the president,” one aide joked.

Please hold for the president

Political experts — including Luke Tryl, from the More in Common think tank — argue the far bigger worry for Farage than skipping votes in parliament, a place that Tryl suggested his supporters think is “pretty dysfunctional,” is the “international showboating.” 

“He’s got to show that he is a regular presence and be visible and out and about, because if a ‘he’s never in Clacton’ narrative cuts through, if they’re seen to be negligent I think that could damage Reform,” Tryl said.

Keir Starmer has also faced criticism for the amount of foreign travel he’s taken on since becoming prime minister in July, and his predecessor Rishi Sunak frequently faced jibes for supposedly wanting to be back in Santa Monica, California, where he owns a luxury penthouse.

Farage is already the subject of jokes about his five visits to the U.S. — and he’s got two more in the diary. He’s off to speak to the New York Young Republican Club Sunday and plans to attend Trump’s inauguration next month.

Farage blames his packed schedule on his late decision to run as an MP, which ultimately got him elected to parliament on his eighth attempt. “I had a load of stuff booked, and that will obviously decline,” he said.

But he defended being friends with the “most powerful man in the world” and insisted he could even play a role that’s “useful to the British government,” an offer Labour is never going to accept.

“Look, I’m not worried about it. There’ll be one narrative, and then when they realize that’s bollocks there’ll be another narrative, it doesn’t bother me,” Farage said.

Not bothered

The other distraction from parliament for Farage is his work on GB News. He hosts a nightly show for the Fox News-like channel that’s been pushing the boundaries for broadcasting right-wing opinion on the U.K.’s heavily regulated airwaves.

We know he gets paid hundreds of thousands of pounds a year for his TV turn, thanks to parliamentary disclosures that are requisite as an MP, disclosures he brands “ridiculous” for a businessperson because only income rather than costs are published. 

Farage has been an outspoken critic of Starmer’s plan to phase out smoking, but when it came to a Commons vote on the legislation the keen smoker was nowhere to be seen in parliament. Instead he was broadcasting on GB News. For that, along with his failure to attend a series of votes on the budget because he was in the U.S. for the election, Farage’s critics accuse him of having his attentions elsewhere.

“The Commons is impossible,” Farage said, describing it as his “biggest nightmare” as he tries to juggle being an MP as well as a party leader.

A modernization committee has been launched to consider the gargantuan task of bringing the workings of Britain’s antiquated parliament closer to a more modern era. 

The cross-party group of MPs is also reviewing whether to impose rules on parliamentarians who, like Farage, have second jobs such as paid TV work.

Farage used a meeting with Leader of the House of Commons Lucy Powell and others on the committee on Dec. 3 to state his case for why he shouldn’t be taken off his show, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting and not authorized to speak publicly.

An office not a job

Farage himself characterized the meeting as being about updating the practice that sees MPs forced to dash without warning to the division lobbies besides the Commons chamber to vote in person when they hear the ringing of bells to signify the time has come.

“I said look Lucy, if you want high profile MPs, MPs with big outside interests, MPs who are party leaders to participate more fully in this place, you’ve got to give us some rough timetable,” he said.

“Of course I want to stay [on GB News]. I did explain to Lucy Powell that it’s not a second job, being an MP is not a job. It’s an office, a distinction that seems to be lost on people.”

“I know myself what I’m getting right, what I’m getting wrong — the Commons is the problem.”

Farage acknowledges the “very important role” more mainstream media organizations play in reaching his supporters and beyond, but insisted he didn’t fear a GB News ban.

“They can do what they like — I’ll just broadcast on social media. They’re not going to stop me,” he said.

He credits YouTube for having “made my career,” clipping up his speeches during his time as a member of the European Parliament, but it’s TikTok where Farage is massive now.

Let a million TikTokers blossom

He’s got more than a million followers on the Chinese-owned social media site, where he posts snappy videos on “left wing” milk being offered in London or taking part in the phenomenon of “splitting the G” on a pint of Guinness.

But there are also videos he comes under more criticism for, such as his posts following the far-right violence that erupted in Britain during the summer.

“It’s aimed very much at the younger generation,” Farage said of his TikTok forays.

Pollsters are divided when it comes to just how significant a “bro vote” of young males is for Reform, as it was for Trump, but they do agree Farage’s youth support is higher than might be expected. 

When he emerges from the Santa’s grotto in a medical room at the sea cadet’s center where a Christmas market is being held, there’s a line of youngsters who want photos with him. Young sea cadets in Essex are by no means representative of the nation, but it’s hard to imagine many other MPs getting similarly mobbed.

There have been calls to tackle political interference on social media, particularly in light of the first round of Romania’s presidential elections, where a far-right outsider who campaigned on TikTok and Telegram recorded a shock victory. The result has since been annulled over claims Russia ran a coordinated campaign to boost him.

The government needs to look “really carefully” at TikTok’s impact on democracy, one senior Labour official in Britain said. “There needs to be a reckoning on all of that.”

What will they do?

Farage is, again, dismissive of such concerns. “I’ll find a way around it,” he said, laughing. “What will they do?”

But the subject raises another topic where Farage came a cropper during the election. Like a lot of those further on the right of politics across the world, he’s seen as being closer than most British politicians to Russia, and sanguine aboutVladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, claims he said were “bollocks.”

Farage made clear where his primary concern lay over Romania; annulling the result was “terrifying,” he said. “When you start cancelling elections you’re in a very bad place.”

Luke Tryl argued that TikTok was particularly helpful to Farage because it allowed him to “bypass” more traditional media where readers would be reminded of some of the more toxic elements of Reform. During the general election, the party had to expel a series of candidates over allegations of racist comments, while others quit amid outrage over offensive remarks.

Tryl said that “toxicity” surrounding candidates and Ukraine, for instance, is one thing holding back more voters from supporting Reform.

Farage acknowledged there were a “couple dozen very bad eggs” selected as candidates, who damaged his cause, but insisted he was now implementing the most “rigorous” vetting “ever done” in British politics.

But that comes with its own problems as he seeks hundreds of candidates ahead of English council elections in May. “There’s a huge number of rejections,” he said.

A big negative

“We’re probably setting the bar too high now, to be honest, and that’s not because of racism, et cetera — it’s just because of language used on social media.”

A second Cabinet minister who suggested Farage and his MPs needed to perform in their constituencies to continue gaining traction offered a word of caution to Labour colleagues. “When you’re a star like him you can get away with so much,” they said.

Tim Bale, a political scientist at Queen Mary University, agreed a narrative of Farage being “never around” taking hold would be a “big negative” for him. But he acknowledged the MP had a similar “Teflon quality” to Trump.

“I’m not sure he could go into Clacton High Street and shoot somebody, and still get elected but there’s an element of that,” Bale said, echoing an infamous claim by Trump.

In the amusement arcades and pubs in the town center, it was easy to find voices of discontent at Farage being “never here.” But they were from despondent constituents who hadn’t voted for Reform — or anyone — at the election.

For Kevin, a 64-year-old retired telephone engineer who had voted Reform, Farage’s presence on television was only a good thing for promoting the forgotten town.

“I’ve seen him around a bit. Seen him on the telly even more. You don’t get that with any other MP,” he said, between wheezes on a cigarette. “He mentions Clacton quite a lot. Most people haven’t ever heard about it before then.”  

Those who hope Farage’s big bid to become prime minister might falter because of his perceived lack of commitment to Clacton shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the veteran campaigner has already clocked the risk.