Less than 24 hours after appointing himself his party’s leader and declaring his intention to stand for parliament, Nigel Farage rolled into his chosen seat of Clacton on Tuesday, promising to “stand up for the little guy” and “be a bloody nuisance” to those in Westminster. But an event that started with the inevitable on-brand pint in the local Wetherspoon’s concluded with a milkshake to the face, after a woman flung the contents of a takeaway cup at Farage as he made his exit a couple of hours later. It summed up the mood of the day in the Essex resort, as well as the character of the man himself – at times genial, at times disturbingly divisive. It was not the slickest of campaign launches but, to most of the crowd of several hundred who had gathered at midday at the end of the Essex town’s pier, that’s all part of Farage’s charm. After leaving the Moon and Starfish pub, the politician had fought through a scrum of cameras and admirers to clamber on to a picnic table in front of the resort’s slowly spinning big wheel, initially fielding heckles of “We can’t hear you!” before an aide hoisted a tinny speaker on to his head, to cheers.
“Is this the most patriotic town in the whole country?” Farage bellowed. The crowd certainly thought so. “We love you, Nigel!” shouted someone. “Up the Farage!” cried another. His speech was a rattle through familiar Farage red meat: D-day and “the minds of our kids being poisoned”. Was anyone present a GB News fan? (They were). Foreign workers were undercutting British wages. The Tories had failed on immigration. “Nothing works any more, does it?” “What do I have to offer you? Well I can promise you that I do know one thing. That a woman can’t have a penis! You won’t get any woke PC nonsense from me!”
For Yvonne Bailey, who had come early with her husband, Reg, from their home in nearby Great Oakley, this was everything that they had wanted to hear and more. The Baileys are Conservative party members, but have been “sadly let down” by the party, she said. Brexit “wasn’t done properly”, the couple think. “We’ve got to get to grips with immigration. We’ve got people who can’t get hospital appointments. All these people coming in are just swamping us.” As for Farage, she said: “He’s talking our language. He has the charisma and the oomph and a real leadership personality, which is sadly lacking with these grey people we have got. They are dull and boring, and he is not at all.”
Stuart and Charlotte Williams were equally enthusiastic, although like several the Guardian spoke to in the crowd they were not Clacton constituents but had driven from elsewhere – in their case nearby Maldon – to hear Farage, so excited were they that he was standing. “I have been thinking for years about what makes him different,” said Charlotte Williams, who described herself as “a small business person”. “You know when you put a dress on and you say, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’ The other parties would say, ‘Oh, you look great.’ Nigel Farage is the only one who would give you an honest opinion.”
But not everyone in the constituency is a fan of the Reform leader or his unsettlingly Trumpian ambition to raise “a people’s army against the establishment”. “The rhetoric that man spews is absolutely vile,” said Tracey Lewis, who works for the NHS and had muttered in disagreement throughout the Reform leader’s speech. “I’ve lived here from a child, grew up in this town. This is an amazing town. The people standing around here never even came from this town, they have all come into this town to create their little Brexit safe haven.” Lewis is a Labour activist and says prejudice is rife in Clacton. “The vile things that people have said to us in this town is unbelieveable. They want the immigrants out. We don’t even have many immigrants in Clacton. Who would come here?” As the crowds peeled away after his speech, a man and woman holding a banner reading: “FARAGE NOT WELCOME HERE” were heckled by a man wearing a St George’s Day sweater, leading to an ugly war of words about Donald Trump’s conviction. Farage is certainly not assured of victory here; Tory MP Giles Watling had a 72% vote share and an almost 25,000 majority in 2019 (though he was unopposed by any other party on the right). While there is little detectible affection for the Tories among Clacton residents, some rankle at the town’s sudden adoption by the Reform leader. “He’s a comedian,” said Brian Kiely, a Dubliner who has lived in Clacton for 27 years and worked as a painter and decorator before retiring due to ill health. “He thinks he can just come down here at the drop of a hat. I’m afraid if he thinks he can just walk in here and win he’s in for a shock.”
Kiely, who voted Conservative in 2019, would like more focus on things like affordable housing and GP waiting lists, he said, as he frequently struggles to get an appointment to discuss his emphysema. Who will he vote for? “To be honest I’m really undecided. I just think to myself, they don’t care about people like me or the ordinary people on the ground.” A 25-year-old woman was arrested by Essex police on suspicion of assaulting Farage by throwing the milkshake. Outside the Moon and Starfish where the incident happened; however, drinkers who had witnessed it insisted the protester didn’t represent them. “We left her in no doubt that people in Clacton need someone like Nigel Farage to speak up for us,” said one woman.