FFS Clacton

[SomaTaim]

You had a chance to put a stop to the dodgy little lying, pathetic twat and you blew it.

Now we have to listen to his bollocks and hate inducing garbage for longer.

9,000 people voted for a bin rather than this swindler.

He can’t even bring himself to come to your town to accept the vote. He is laughing at you.

Real “man of the people’ - why can’t you see that he doesn’t give a crap about you or your problems?

Oh well at least the investigation into the £5mill can resume.

What a fucking waste of time and money. Disgusting. Disappointed in you guys. 🙈

That's not how politics works - never was and never will be. Very few people actually read manifestos and even if they do, they end up disappointed when politicians renege on their promises and commitments as they do time and time and time again. You may sneer at @BerryTwister's post of 10.51 and call it laughable but it's actually spot on - years of politicians ignoring communities, usually in poorer areas, and dismissing their concerns has lead to this. I saw it coming years ago - many of us did - and now here we are.

This is happening all over Europe. As long as large numbers of military aged males from incompatible cultures are entering our countries and either being allowed to stay or just staying anyway by multiple appeals or disappearing into the grey economy, anti-immigration parties will be on the rise.

Add to that, crimes and terrorism committed by asylum seekers and refugees and you'll get situations like in Germany where they have 152 far right AFD in the German parliament or France where le Pen's National Rally are tipped to win the next election. This is what happens when politicians dismiss people as ignorant bigots.

There are people on MN who did vote for him. Why would they be treated as Global joke. If he had won he wasn’t going to sit in Parliament with his costume on.

I suspect it's unlikely. I asked AI if we can get through the paralysis caused by the word racist. The deliberate theatre of a comedy writer who has been described by his supporters as attempting a double irony on Clacton, ie Farage is theatre so let's out theatre him, is potentially a tipping point. This comedian has unknowingly provided a "peak identity" as he's simply the ultimate expression of the word "racist" paralysis, and how empty it is. Maybe we are at the peak but the sanctimony is so enjoyable now that politics is addicted to it.

From genesis AI

Signs of an Eventual Shift
A break in the deadlock will likely only occur if the semantic power of the word itself degrades. A 2025 study noted that 67% of British voters feel the country is heavily divided by culture wars. As the public grows increasingly cynical regarding political theater, a tipping point may arrive where voters simply penalize parties that use identity politics to mask structural failures in public utilities, housing, and the economy.

In Britain, this deadlock is unlikely to break in the near future, as the country's political landscape undergoes a major structural "unfreezing" where cultural identity and the weaponization of the word "racist" have become central to party survival. 1]
Rather than resolving, the deadlock is intensifying due to distinct pressures across the UK's shifting five-party system. 1]

Democracy only works if people respect the choices that people make.

Slagging off the voters because they believe differently from you won't change the way they think or vote.

Perhaps a more constructive question would be why did they vote for him?

Interesting question. I doubt any replacement would have been as effective. So I would guess Reform would be smaller and less influential. But yes, the main anti-immigrant voice now might be more hard line.

Probably a middle class "refugees welcome" labour supporter who is now crapping themselves cos Andy's gonna parachute a load of middle Eastern men into their lovely little community 🤣

What's quite extraordinary is that nearly 10,000 people did. Over a quarter of voters in a constituency like Clacton turned out for a man with a bin on his head.

What lessons will Farage learn from this?

There wasn’t much there for people if they didn’t want to vote for Reform.

Yes, obviously, if the alternative is Farage. He's already contemptuous of his own constituents. More than a quarter of people voting for a bin makes Farage look like the global joke, tbh.

The people of Clacton obviously disagree with you.

Do you think anything new was there to learn?

How do you suggest they decrease?

Baring in mind international law and that we have British people migrating abroad too.

Nothing to stop a local person stepping up and standing as an Independent candidate, with a manifesto focusing on local issues and informed by the experience of living in Clacton. One of the main complaints against Farage is that he doesn't bother with surgeries. A candidate who wasn't a joke and had credible practical plans for how to help with people's problems might have had some success.

... and our declining birth rate.

People on here just don't like it that some people don't agree with their left wing views. Voters in Clacton can make up their own minds and have a right to do so. I'm delighted Reform have won.

There wasn’t hence the longest list of candidates yet. But if people wanted the full list of mainstream parties they weren’t there. It became CB as a stand in.

I said laughable because it’s overly simplistic. Perhaps my own view also is. But people’s opinions form from their day to day lives.

I think people need to understand that Reform are all talk. Cardboard cut outs. I am far from happy with some of the things Labour has done. That does not mean we’ll be better off with Reform.

I hope you're also delighted that the investigation into Farage's non-declaration of the £5m donated to him by a cr**to magnate has immediately resumed. He won't be as in his world it's one rule for him and another for everyone else, of course.

We will always have asylum claims. It’s part of international law.

But what we don’t have is safe routes whereby we can control those claiming asylum.

We now have a problem of people
risking their lives in boats and arriving undocumented to claim
asylum. Which is actually legal.

However all we hear is “stop the boats” “fighting age men” etc coming on boats. This was a direct result of Brexit. The small boats problem didn't exist at this level before then.

The leader of Reform is running a campaign off the back of something the leader of the Brexit party advocated for after the leader of UKIP campaigned for the referendum for years.

The common denominator?

Oh yeah - the same leader.

As pp said it’s more a consequence of lorries stopping. That was due to a clampdown after public outcry when a suffocation happened to many.

You’re connecting two unrelated events. Not having Brexit hasn’t resolved issues in the EU, unless you can say how any country in the EU has used policy to stop migration issues?

We are actually a far more stable cohort than you would believe by listening to the overwrought media reasons for importing 12 million people. Also we have delayed having children over the last 4 or 5 decades which does have an effect on birth rates, something never mentioned even though it is very obvious.

The White British population decreased by approximately 700,000 people between the 2011 and 2021 censuses in England and Wales. Over the same period, the average age of a first-time mother in the UK increased to between 29.0 and 31.0 years old, representing a noticeable delay compared to 19 and 20 years ago. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

White British Population Reduction
According to official data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS): 1]

• 2011 Census: 45.1 million people identified as "White: English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish or British" (80.5% of the population).
• 2021 Census: 44.4 million people identified within this group (74.4% of the population).
• Actual Reduction: A drop of 700,000 people. 1, 2, 3]

(Note: While the specific "White British" subset declined, the broader "Total White" category—which includes European groups like "White Other"—rose slightly in actual numbers from 48.2 million to 48.7 million due to migration). 1]

Average Age at First Birth
The average age of a woman giving birth to her first baby has risen steadily due to demographic shifts: 1, 2, 3]

• Now (Latest ONS Data): The standardized mean age for all mothers is 31.1 years, and the mean age specifically for a first-time mother sits at approximately 29.0 to 30.7 years depending on the specific UK nation.
• 19 Years Ago (2007): The average age of a first-time mother was 27.5 years.
• 20 Years Ago (2006): The average age of a first-time mother hovered around 27.3 years. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Ultimately, women are transitioning to motherhood roughly 1.5 to 3 years later in life than they did two decades ago. 1, 2]

Yes, I agree. People were warned that this would happen as a result of Brexit. And now it’s happening it’s somebody else’s fault.

Never you and your voting choices, no. This is not about left vs right either.

When people say this do you not notice what is happening in the EU with migration?

Germany, Italy, Spain, France - all still members of the EU. All receiving huge numbers of migrants.