I spent time with Count Binface in Clacton – he’s more serious than you think

If elected as Clacton-on-Sea’s MP, Count Binface’s first act will be to increase the size of the door aperture in the House of Commons. At eight feet tall he’ll need the room. “I’m sick of banging my head,” he says. Nigel Farage’s chief rival in the Reform UK leader’s self-inflicted by-election is sitting down to speak exclusively to The i Paper at an unlikely venue: a Toby Carvery overlooking the North Sea. The “intergalactic space warrior” and “leader of the Recyclons from the planet Sigma IX” is a novelty candidate who, amid the jokes, will make some serious points. But first, the trivia. Binface’s pledges include bringing back Ceefax, a “windfall tax on cosy crime novels” written by so-called celebrities, capping the price of a croissant at £1 and making the village of Weeley, five miles north of Clacton, his Bin HQ. He has also promised to make arcade grabber machines “fairer so players actually have a chance to win”. Nationalising Adele and taxing ‘cosy crime novels’ One of his policies needs more attention. Just how much would it cost to nationalise the singer Adele, assuming she would consent to being publicly owned? Hundreds of millions of pounds, perhaps, for the superstar who last released an album in 2021? “Exactly, which is nothing to the British Exchequer,” Binface exclaims as he gets into his stride. “I know that your country is skint, but you’re still supposedly … the seventh richest nation on planet Earth. I reckon you could stump up enough to buy her out of her current deal. “And the thing is, she hasn’t done an album for a while, right? She’s going to do one eventually. So, buy the stock when it’s low, right? And then when she brings out the next album… it’s going to go gangbusters.” But there is a serious backdrop to this by-election, which was prompted when sitting MP Farage resigned, claiming a sleaze investigation was being used as a political tool against him. He said he wants the people of Clacton, rather than Parliament’s standards watchdog, to judge him. Railing against the establishment The Reform UK leader was under investigation by the Parliamentary authorities for donations, including more than £5m from Christopher Harborne, a cryptocurrency billionaire. The probe is paused during the by-election campaign but is expected to resume if he’s re-elected. Farage says there was no obligation to declare the money because he was not an MP when he received it, describing the cash as a private, unconditional gift for personal security and a reward for Brexit campaigning. Announcing his resignation in early July, Farage railed against the establishment and claimed his security was under threat. Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and Restore Britain all refused to stand against him, leaving novelty candidates and minor parties as the competition. The Reform leader’s allies wasted no time in trying to paint Binface as just another pillar of the establishment. Inside the helmet is Oxford-educated comedian Jon Harvey, who has worked on BBC’s Have I Got News for You and Times Radio. “I’ve seen it [said] in some right-wing circles that I am the establishment, which is peculiar to me, seeing as I am a lone wolf with almost no Earth money, who just toddles along to by-elections as a hobby, with a bit of a Ceefax fetish. If that’s the establishment, maybe that means Britain’s in a slightly healthier place than I feared,” he says. “But I think the establishment is probably people who line their pockets with millions and millions of pounds of crypto-billionaire money without declaring it properly and saying that they can spend it on Ferraris if they want and having been a member of Parliament and a member of the European Parliament and the architect of the Brexit shambles over the last 20 years. You tell me which one’s the establishment.” In conversation with Andy Burnham Harvey first wore a novelty costume in 2017 when standing as Lord Buckethead against Theresa May, then the prime minister, in the Maidenhead constituency. He changed the character after the filmmaker behind the 1984 science-fiction parody Hyperspace, which inspired the name, warned him to stop using it. Count Binface stood in Makerfield against Andy Burnham – now the Prime Minister – in June. “I think his heart’s in the right place,” says Binface. “I had a good chat with him at Makerfield. I gave him a couple of ideas. He knew my manifesto about renaming HS2, FFS1. He said he’d think about it.” He is not endorsing the new PM. “It’s early days,” he says. “But does he seem slightly more human than the previous prime minister? Yes he does. Is that saying much? No, it isn’t.” In Clacton, his eighth election, Binface has captured the public imagination more than ever, securing £90,000 in crowdsourced funding, some of which will go towards a new costume. Count Binface stood against Andy Burnham during the Makerfield by-election (Photo: Oli Scarff/AFP) Bin costume ‘putrefying’ inside At “5,900 Sigma IX years old” – or eight Earth years – the bin get-up has seen better days. He describes it as “putrefying” inside, adding, “I’m surprised you’re sitting so close.” A sunrise walk on the beach ahead of our interview saw a piece of the bin fall into the sand. Later, triumphant against the odds, his friend located the missing section and disappeared to find some glue. But such is the grim nature of modern politics – Farage was attacked with a milkshake just half a mile away – Binface will have to spend some donations on security. He feigns huffiness when asked where the inspiration for his costume comes from. “This is the standard gear. I mean, where does the inspiration for human skin come from? Have you asked a Dalek what they’re about?” Admitting to never interviewing a Dalek, he advises against. “I wouldn’t,” he says. “They’re not very pleasant.” In Clacton there are 34 candidates, including three from the Monster Raving Loony Party alone. “Anti-woke” controversialist Laurence Fox, and Traveller influencer Trewley Precious, are also among the crowd. “They’re all coming out of the woodwork like woodworm,” as resident John Hooper, 79, puts it. Most will lose their £500 deposit when they don’t win five per cent of the vote, but Binface is the only one who has a documentary crew following him around. Weariness at the by-election circus In the town centre, there is a sense of weariness that voters are being asked to go to the polls at all – and frustration that so many candidates have turned the by-election into a circus. “It’s just made a bit of a joke of the town because we’ve got all these people that don’t live in Clacton that have put themselves forward, but they don’t live here,” says Laura Smith, 43, a teaching assistant. El Clover, 24, a computer science student, says the election is a “sham”, adding: “My option is Binface or spoiling the ballot. I don’t agree with the fact that there has been a by-election at all.” Lesley Hart, 70, a retired teacher, is voting Binface. “It will show Nigel up for his stupidity,” she says, estimating the constituency splits 80/20 in favour of Farage but there is also a significant protest vote. “If you win, you’ve only beaten a bin,” she says. Lesley Hart, 70, is voting for Count Binface to ‘show Nigel Farage up for his stupidity’ (Photo: Alex Lancaster-Lennox/The i Paper) An Ipsos poll found that, nationally, more people would prefer Binface to win, suggesting the by-election has become a way to mock Farage, rather than to bolster his authority. So far there have been no constituency-wide polls, although the bin-headed challenger does not expect to actually beat the Reform leader. In the absence of the major political parties, who are refusing to field candidates, he describes himself as “His Majesty’s official opposition.” Back at the Toby Carvery, we consider the implications if Binface were to win. Would he align himself with another party? “No,” he insists, he would be an independent in the tradition of Martin Bell, who stood in 1997 to topple a Tory MP embroiled in a sleaze scandal. “In the Venn diagram, I am the perfect synergy” between Bell and late leader of the Monster Raving Loonies, Screaming Lord Sutch, he says. Would he move to Clacton if he won? “I’d love to. I’d like to find a chalet,” or “I can just cloak the old starship above the area.” And he would definitely take his seat. “Why not? I’m not from Sinn Féin,” he says, referring to the Irish republican party whose Northern Ireland MPs refuse to sit in the House of Commons. ‘The tiny sword of satire makes democracy special’ Binface has been described variously as the best tradition of British satire; a novelty candidate; a protest vote; and a twee distraction whose dated jokes belong in the, ahem, dustbin of history. When asked to describe himself, a serious point emerges. “I would say that satire and comedy is in the ear of the beholder. So, whether you find what I do satirical is up to humans, right? That’s very gratifying if I’m making a point in a light-hearted way, but there is a point. You see, the simple sword of satire is a broken, tiny little prod-y sort of toothpick sword. It can’t do that much damage, but it’s worth having. It’s what makes democracy special. Have you ever interviewed a satirist from China? Or from Russia?” The UK, he says, is “the only country on Earth – and then by logic, the only planet in the cosmos – where somebody like me is allowed to stand as the great leveller at that village hall next to the prime minister, a minister, a far-right leader, whoever it may be. “And there are 34 candidates standing. That’s beautiful. There’s something special about that, and I suggest that the British should be celebrating and defending the fact. Whether you vote Binface or not. I hope you do, but it is the fact that we can do this is pretty special, and it deserves to be protected.” Binface might be making a serious point, but he’s unlikely to have the spotlight shone so brightly on him again. If the parliamentary authorities find against Farage there could be a second by-election, but then the mainstream parties would be likely to field candidates. Would Binface fancy a second tilt? “Depends how busy my diary is,” he replies laconically.