Farage is doing some “i can win against the establishment” thing and labour gave up before even trying so now Count Binface is the only opposition of Farage

BREAKING: Labour says it won’t stand against Nigel Farage in the Clacton by-election

As it stands, only Count Binface will run against Farage

They are trying to silence him

🚨 NEW: Parliament has confirmed Count Binface will not be allowed to sit in the Commons wearing his space costume and bin head

Farage vs Count Binface: hard-right leader’s UK poll gambit

London (AFP) – British anti-immigrant politician Nigel Farage faces the embarrassing prospect of going head-to-head with perennial joke candidate Count Binface in a by-election after he decided to quit parliament.

His surprise move threatened to backfire Wednesday after other heavyweight parties confirmed they would not contest the vote for Farage’s seat in southeast England.

Count Binface, a self-described “intergalactic space warrior”, is the only other person to have said so far that they would run.

  • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    22 days ago

    The funniest thing about this whole farce is that Farage isn’t even successfully avoiding his investigation with this. They’ve come out and said “the investigation is suspended but can and will be restarted if he is re-elected”.

    He’s avoided nothing, made himself look like a total prat, gone red faced with rage multiple times on the tv which doesn’t cut well with the average british public, he’s falling apart.

    He probably wins this but it achieves absolutely fucking nothing but making him look like he’ll use any tactic to try and avoid scrutiny.

    If he’d acted totally normal about it and just behaved like taking £5million from foreign funding sources is normal (it’s not but the average brit would’ve bought it) he wouldn’t have been hurt much. It’s not going to turn people away from the right but it is losing him the grillers that know nothing and thought he was a good guy. Meanwhile the right are all a bunch of opportunists and are fragmenting into various different competing far right groups because they see a drop of blood in the water, they all want to be the next Farage.

    We’ve got three years of this under Burnham to go. The right could end up murdering each other in that time.

    • Euergetes [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      22 days ago

      there was no way he was going to be seriously censured for this, but he got so fumed by reporters asking basic questions he’s thrown an insane heap of magnification on his case.

      i don’t expect much from the parliament ethics board or whatever but i bet they’ll pursue the harshest slap on the wrist instead of the routine one had he not acted out

      • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        22 days ago

        there was no way he was going to be seriously censured for this

        No but he’s built his entire brand on accusing everyone else of corruption. Europe? Corrupt bureaucrats that do nothing. Parliament? Corrupt. Expenses fiddlers? Corrupt. He’s had a word to say about every single one of them while holding himself up as Mr follower of the LAW.

        The british public responded really strongly to the expenses scandals and anything that skirts closely to “breaking money laws in british politics” stands to completely fuck him over in the view of a lot of the public.

        His whole shtick has always been attack politics too. But you can’t do that shtick if everyone’s response is to laugh at you and say “what about YOUR finances? lmao”.

        This isn’t just his credibility with the average public either, it’s his credibility in the right itself with all the wolves circling as the entire right doesn’t know wtf it’s doing now that the tory party is obviously cooked. There’s like, 4 tory parties now or whatever all wanting to be the next one and they see Farage as a barrier to their ascension. He’s not just under attack from the left of him but also from the fractured right, it’s possibly the weakest position I’ve ever seen him in.

    • orlando [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      the investigation is suspended but can and will be restarted if he is re-elected

      No it can’t. That’s not how the law works. It’s designed to become corrupt enough to serve these fuhrers unconditionally.

        • orlando [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          21 days ago

          I just don’t care what any of that picture says, because neither does the bourgeoisie. The rule of law, the institutions etc it’s all noise.

          • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            21 days ago

            It is a system designed to favour the goals of the bourgeoisie yes. Farage and other parliamentarians however are small fish beholden to big sharks. It is those sharks who run the system, and the system does work against a fish like Farage at times.

              • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]@hexbear.net
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                21 days ago

                Institutions are comprised of thousands of people and most of those people aren’t in on it. They don’t have a post-it note on their desk that says “your job is to protect the bourgeoisie above all else”. They’re mostly normal people who do their job sincerely. The system is designed to favor people like Farage but it’s not a monolith, there are a ton of factors that can influence whether or not he will face consequences for corruption charges, down to the political orientations of individual case workers.

                • DornerStan@lemmygrad.ml
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                  20 days ago

                  Well said

                  On top of that, one of the mechanisms of the state as a mediator of class conflict is the production and maintenance of legitimacy. A critical mass of people need to buy into the system for it to efficiently self-reproduce, so there’s a limit to how much the bourgeoisie and their lackeys can outright break their own rules.