‘I won’t be cowed’: Nigel Farage on death threats, Binface and the fight for Clacton | The Daily T

Parliament is out for summer, and while MPs are sunning themselves in Thailand, we're here in Clacton for a carry -on by -election.

We speak to Nigel Farage and the good people of Clacton to find out if the reform leader can beat a bin.And a human fish finger.We all know what smokers are like.They do have a tendency to just take the fag out of the mouth, put it on the floor.Are you really the right person to be advocating this campaign?Now you're going to let us into a little secret.

You've got a little system.Let's see it, please.

Method.

Right.

There it is, you see.

So you carry your own ashtray?

Yeah.

That gets heavier and heavier by the day, does it?

I can barely walk some days.

So there you have it.Nigel Farage keeping Britain tidy one fagbat at a time.Good morning.Well, this is lovely.Love it.Hello, chap.

How are you?Really nice to see you in your patch.

Really good to be here.

It's lovely here.Beautiful day.

Utterly useless renewable energy, can you see?

Well, when we came up in the car, I said, that is an eyesore.I'm sorry, I don't want to see that on our shores.No, but look at it.I mean, you say none of them are turning, and therefore it's completely bloody useless.

There's 175 of them in front of you, not a single one turning.But it's OK, because we're saving the planet.

I know.

Isn't it marvellous?

Let's Stupid Zero, I believe your colleague calls it.

Something like that, Richard Tice.Yeah, he does.

Right, let's get Tim and Bertie involved.Have you met the dog?I certainly have.Nigel Farage, we are in your hood.This is exciting.We're on Clacton Pier with you.

Now, I'm going to put it to you that this by -election, fighting for your own seat back, is a bit of a farrago, or some might say farrago.

Well, it's real.I mean, there are nearly 80 ,000 people who have got the chance to vote.It's a real election.It's a real election, and they're going to judge me.They're going to judge me on how I've done for the first two years, whether they still want me to be the MP.It's funny, isn't it?

Because Josh Simon stands down as a Labour MP for a highly paid job in Downing Street, calls a by -election, and that's absolutely vital.I call a by -election, and the other parties run a mile.Extraordinary.

What are local voters saying to you about that?

So in the very Tory areas, there is almost incredulity that the Tories aren't standing.Because don't forget, in 2019, Giles Watling, the MP, got 31 ,000 votes, 72 % of the vote.One of the safest Tory seats in the whole of the country.They just can't understand why they haven't got a Tory to vote for.

What about Labour voters?Any sign of those?

I can't find any.

No, literally, the old Labour vote has come to me en masse.Initially, when this all happened, you have to agree that even you didn't quite foresee that other main party candidates would back out.And it could have been you versus the bin.We've now got countless independents in.So has that changed the complexion of it?First of all, on BinFace, you can beat BinFace, right?

Well, I think howling Lord Hope.This is his 30th by -election.I mean, he's a veteran, great campaigner.There's no doubt the pubs in Clackham will do very well because he's here.So I think it's a fair bet.that the monster raving loonies will actually beat Bimface.

But we'll see on the day.It could be tight.I don't know.No, I was astonished.I mean, I did think, and I knew Labour would struggle to save the deposit here, literally struggle to save it.But I thought the Tories might try and mount a serious campaign.

But they haven't.And also, it's quite funny, because for two years in a row, with Essex in control of the County Council, they tried to delay the elections.They're not standing in this election.But the big one, they don't want a general election.And I find that unbelievable when we've got Burnham in saying he's going to make the biggest changes to politics in 40 years with no mandate.

He's quite popular though, Burnham.There's some new polling out from YouGov suggesting he's the most popular new Prime Minister since Teresa May.But that could hamper your chances of becoming the next Prime Minister if this new guy who I'm nicknaming, admittedly, Eilash McGraw, is more popular than Nigel Farage.

Well, if you're suggesting to me that he's on the same trajectory as Theresa May, the happy days won't last very long, will they?And what does it all add up to?I mean, a little giveaway here, a gimmick there.We don't really know what he's all about.And I think the biggest thing of all is the sums just aren't going to add up.They're going to be in real trouble very, very quickly.

I don't know, Nigel, a politician quite like you who gets the response that you get in the street.We were just walking here, and I assume this wasn't a set -up.A lady stopped you at the traffic lights to say, I've only ever voted once before and it was for you, I love you, save my country.The flip side of that is you also, of course, get a lot of hate.

Yeah.

And you must, in the wake of the killing of Anne Widdicombe, and obviously we've got to be careful what we say because it's an open case.Are you feeling, how do you feel in yourself about your personal security and about your ability to walk freely among the people?

Do you know, there are those on the right of the spectrum who broadcast and who write columns, who say things about the left that might be mildly disobliging, but there are Lots of people on the left in broadcast and print media who say things about figures on the right that are nothing short of insightful.And this has been going on for a very, very long time.I've been at the forefront of this now since 2013.I've been attacked more than anybody.I think we looked at my online threats.I think it was 400 death threats in the last seven weeks.

or something like that.No, I mean, clearly it's worrying.I mean, obviously what the public see are, you know, milkshake chucked in your face or something like that.The public haven't seen a fraction of the things that have happened to me over the years.And yeah, I mean, I'm obviously concerned about it.I'm concerned not just for myself.

I'm concerned for other senior figures in reform.But you know what?If I'm, I mean, look, Do you know what I want to do?Walk down that street there.Do you see it?Packed with people.

I want to walk down that street.I want to get people's instinctive reaction.And they can shout abuse at me, and that's fine.I'll have a laugh back with them.But if I'm prevented from walking down that street for fear of being physically attacked instantly, then something in our politics fundamental will have been lost.So you know what, Tim?

My answer is I'm not going to be cowed by it.

I also feel that when a left -wing person is attacked, we very rightly say, that is appalling, they must be memorialised, and we must clamp down on this kind of hate in our politics.When a right -wing person is attacked, I feel like everyone goes, it's complicated.

Well, you mentioned the death of, the ghastly murder of poor Anne.You know, I went two days afterwards, laid a wreath just below Haytor, and I gave a little speech about her, her remarkable life, how even when you were on the same side as her at times you could feel the wrath of Anne's opinions.And somehow I was condemned.for politicising the murder, which I absolutely didn't do.Yet, you know, when Joe Cox was murdered, that was all the fault of the Brexiteers.So we're not having an equal...

And literally the next day, John Bercow and other senior politicians went to her constituency.

Yes, yes.So, you know, we're not doing things properly.And look, you know, I mean, I certainly grew up in an age when people on the left or on the right would have a really vigorous argument in a pub, but would absolutely respect the right of the other person to have a different point of view.And we're moving away, way, way from that.I talked about media earlier.I think the education system has an awful lot to do with this as well.

So, you know, it is a real problem.You know, I'm scared that we're going to finish up in a situation where nobody with small c conservative views will consider going into public life because of the fear.And I mean, with me, to be honest with you, the absolute final straw is, you know, my daughter's address and house being put on.I'm really sorry, but for a national newspaper to do that is despicable.And there's another member of my family that's actually been hounded by the press.And I'm not going to talk about it, it's so awful.

Would that happen to Zak Polanski?I don't think it would, and nor should it.

You have to find his address because it moves on the river.

It moves on the river.There might not be all of the council tax paid necessarily.But, I mean, do you want to invite more and more of this?We've got this by -election.We're going to have to weight the outcome of the investigation into the £5 million donation.In your mind, that could lead to a second by -election.

Well, let's just get a sense of context on this, shall we?I haven't broken the law.I haven't avoided or avoided tax.I haven't misused any public money.My personal expenses since I became the Member of Parliament for Clacton two years ago are zero.I haven't claimed a penny.

I don't need it.I've got outside income.I've got business interests.I don't need it.What am I guilty of?Well, possibly not filling in a form.

Possibly not filling in a form.Now, my lawyers were clear with me there was no need to.Some in Parliament take a different view.So I think, you know, getting a sense of perspective of what I'm supposed to be doing.wrong is quite important.

Sure, absolutely, but you're saying that you're in a way the victim of a witch hunt and therefore we could conclude that perhaps the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner will not side with you and there could be a recall petition.So I just want to clarify for our audience because I think they're confused.We could have this by -election and then you could end up fighting another by -election in a few months' time.Are you prepared for that?Because it also, of course, attracts more attention to you at a time that's difficult for reform MPs for all of the reasons you just outlined.

Let's see what the result is here in a couple of weeks' time.If I get a thumping endorsement here from the people and they really, really try and push and make them vote again, I think Parliament itself will look very silly.

Sure.Can I also ask you about Clacton itself?Because we've had a lot of debates since Andy Burnham came to power about a North -South divide and he wants to improve things for all postcodes.And some Southerners have said, well, hang on, does that mean we're going to be paying for improvements to the North?Tim and I have discussed quite a lot on the Daily T that we think the divide these days is actually between city and town and more specifically seaside towns that seem to have been left behind.Now, I must say, I haven't been to Clacton before.

We've come here, it's full of life, but there are pockets of deep poverty in this town.There are difficulties and there is difficulty for people here to actually find work.What would you do to change that situation if you were Prime Minister?

Well, you're right.And I mean, Butlin's closing.Butlin's closing down at Jaywick has been a disaster for that area.You know, a couple of thousand good jobs gone, very difficult to see what replaces it.And actually, if you look at the big roundabout at the start of town at half past six in the morning, the traffic jams are enormous because it's people driving out of Clacton to go to work in Colchester or Chelmsford or Cambridge or wherever else it may be.The seaside town has had a very, very tough ride.

Many of them, of course, are fishing towns.This one's not, but many of them are fishing towns.And literally, our European engagement has just destroyed those industries.Clacton can thrive, but it has to have good weather, and it has to have a lot of tourists.And this year, I think at the minute, the omens are good.The omens are better.

So yes, we've got deep pockets of deprivation.We've also got some extraordinary areas of old money and old wealth.We have to encourage work, we have to encourage jobs, but if I talk to the traders here in the constituency running their own little businesses, and there are loads of them, loads of them, they're not taking on youngsters because minimum wage for under 18s has gone up by 28%.The peer behind me, I mean, he was most summers taking on up to a couple of hundred youngsters who'd come and work in the summer halls, that's down to 150 this year.Just one little example of what government's done.So make life easier for business, make life easier for wealth creation, remove some of those barriers, would be at least a start.

Am I right that it's the anniversary of the pier?

155 years young on Saturday.

Will you be performing in any capacity?

Well, give me the microphone, I'm sure I can have a go, you know.

They've been playing your songs, Superman.

I could do a bit of Sinatra for them or something.Yeah, 155 years and there will be, just after dark, a huge fireworks display on the end of the pier and it's going to be good.It's six and a half acres.that pier.It's six and a half acres and there's everything on it from ten pin bowling to climbing frames to the old -fashioned Tupley machines and it's, you know, it actually is a really, really fun place.I'd say this, miles of sandy beaches and if the weather's rotten, piers, entertainment, pavilions and people come for a day here, they love it.

He does politics, he does tourism, he can sing, he can dance.Well, one of my biggestjobs.

You know, Clacton has got it.a famous MP or an infamous MP or had until a couple of days ago.And one of my big jobs has been to try and put it on the map and say to people, give it a go, come for a day out, you might be surprised.

But final question then, Nigel, when people say about you, listen, I mean, because you're in your element here, I can tell.I know you well enough.You're out on the campaign stump.You're meeting the public.You love it.You're taking the fight to the establishment.

You're slagging off Labour and the Tories.You know, it's all great fun.When people say, He's a bloody good campaigner, but can he actually run anything?What is your response to that criticism?

I've built a political party from zero.It's been the biggest political party in the country, with structure, organisation, and I've done it as the CEO.Tell you what, that's not a bad track record.

This is beautiful.

This is all the local council would do it.It's stunning.

Is the council run by whom?

There's actually no overall control at the moment, but it is a local district council.tendering district council for this peninsula, there are two members of parliament, there's myself and Bernard in the adjoining constituency.And our real worry, and this is absolutely true, is that if local government reorganisation goes ahead, this district council will disappear.We'll be chucked into a big unitry, an amorphous mass, and the decisions will get made many, many miles away in the interests of big towns and cities.

But that would be completely anti -Andy Burnham's devolution agenda.

It's the opposite of devolution.And look, if he wants to have his mayors all over the country, fine.All right, that's fine.But to get rid of district councils will, for rural areas and seaside areas, literally be a disaster.

So therefore you have a little bit of alliance with the new Prime Minister in that you would like more localism, you would like more local control over local areas, which I'm telegraphingwill be completely agreeing with you.They don't want the decisions all contracted out, because even a county council doesn't know individual areas within its county.

So we have Clacton Town Hall up the road.Everyone knows that's where the planning decisions get made.Everyone knows they're the people in charge of the civic pride of the place.And there is a genuine feeling and connection.And look, no one agrees with everything the local council does, but at least it's there.You can touch it.

And if you move it away to Braintree or whatever, it'll just be awful.

Also, crucially, you might have councillors that live a couple of roads down, you can raise things with them, if it's out of reach in a different area.

It is a shocking idea.And the other thing is, why would you break historic counties up into three, four or five of these just literally amorphous unitaries?It's a dreadful idea.As I say, Mr Burnham, we'll support you on the Mayors, but please, please rethink all of this.

And also, as we look out to the coast, Have you ever donned your swimming trunks and got into this water here?

I have actually.

And?

I have actually.

Is it clean?

It's pretty good.Is it?It's pretty good.It's rated, I think last year the beach here was rated the second best in the country.So the beaches here are lovely and they're very shallow.

Have you got the lungs for swimming?

Just about.Just about.But tragically, tragically, several people this summer already have died.

Well, two girls in Essex I've just read this morning because people are trying to call off.It's extremely dangerous.

And one thing the government have done is they've really slashed Coast Guard.

Right.

You had a lot of people working for Coast Guard on minimum wage but happy to do it.They've taken that away.And we're now seeing a very diminished Coast Guard.It's almost like we've got a Labour government made up of urbanites who have no sense or feeling for the countryside or the seaside.

Do you see yourself as an urbanite or a country gent?

I've never been an urbanite.

No.

And I'm from the country.

But it's because of your city.past, right?People see you suited and booted and kind of like City of London type.

Yeah.I mean, of course, my career was in the city, but no, no, no, no, no.My heart's always on the seaside or in the country.So yeah, I'm not an urbanite at all.I'm country.I doubt I'm a gent, though.

Do you think now there's a new prime minister, there will soon be a general election, and are you ready to fight it?

There should be a general election, because I've said already, you can't, without a mandate, put in the biggest change in politics for 40 years.There's a chance that he gets to the Labour conference, sets out the vision, and puts it to the country.But there's equally a chance that he bottles it.And if, since the day you left university, all you've pretty much ever done is be in politics as a career, and you finally become the prime minister, are you really going to risk it all?

Yeah.

I don't think he'll do it.I think he should do it.If he did, would you be ready?Yes.You've got the candidates?We have had four days a week parliamentary assessment centres up and down the country going now for several weeks.

We are preparing everything for a November election if it's to happen.

Now Nigel, when we were last at a Reform press conference you launched your Keep Britain Tidy campaign and Richard Tice was saying how you were going to literally clean up Britain one street at a time and then I suggested well I don't know whether your esteemed leader is up for that because You do smoke quite a lot.How many fags do you smoke a day?Do you know?

Far fewer than I used to.

Far fewer?What, you were on 40 a day and now you're on 20?Something like that?

Anyway, and I said...Probably at the ballpark.

All right, fair enough.And I said, well, hang on, we all know what smokers are like.They do have a tendency to just take the fag out of the mouth, put it on the floor.Are you really the right person to be advocating this campaign?Now, you're going to let us into a little secret.You've got a little system.

Let's see it, please.

Method.

Right.

There it is, you see.

What, so you carry your own ashtray?

Yeah.

That get heavier and heavier by the day, does it?

I can barely walk some days.

So there you have it.Nigel Farage keeping Britain tidy, one fag bat at a time.We're in the local Spoons, and I'm speaking to, what's your name, sir?

John.

John.And you have a vote in this election, do you?

Yeah, Frinton.

And who are you going to be voting for?

I'm undecided between bin face and fish finger.

I can tell that Nigel Farage is notable by his absence in that list.Why would you rather vote for a bin or a human fish finger than the leader of the Reform Party?

I think principle really.What's he calling an election for?We're fed up with elections in this country.No, he's just had innocence, hasn't he?Because they're worrying his daughter.

But you're not instantly attracted by the F factor, the Farage factor?

He can talk a lot, yeah.You know, if he did what some of the things he did, yeah, maybe they would be good for the country.

Yes.

I do think some of the things he says are correct, but not all of them.Yeah.

But then you don't, if you wanted to continue voting for Conservatives, you can't really, because you don't have a candidate.No.Have they made a mistake there?

I don't think they've made a mistake.I think Conservative and Labour have made a mistake.

Yes.

They're very silly to not put people here.

Why are you supporting Nigel Farage in yet another vote when he's already won this seat?Isn't this whole by -election a bit of a joke?No, I don't think so.Not really.No?

Not really, no.What they're doing to him?I don't...You know, in Parliament, what's going on?

No, I don't.Do you think he's the victim of a witch hunt of sorts?

Definitely.

Yeah, definitely.Charlie, what's your view?

Yeah, he is. I mean, to be honest, Everyone attacks Nigel all the time.for everything.Reform's always brought up in any argument.

Yes.

To be honest, this country, unless Nigel gets in, and obviously in a general election, this country's down the pan.

So it's between a bin and a fish finger.Where are you coming down, John?Come on.

Well, I think I'd probably go with bin face because he was first and the other one, the fish fingers, is going to split the vote now and he shouldn't have done it.

Can you believe we're talking in these terms about fish fingers and bins?

You know, the 21st century, innit?

Can I just say for the record, I'm from an ice cream family, Tommany City Ices.It's made its way by the way it's made.Often licked, never beaten.I am not under any circumstances having a Mr Whippy.If we're getting an ice cream, we're getting a dairy ice cream, not one, not two.that comes out of the machine?

Can I just say that now?

Well, I've taken on Nigel Farage before, a long time ago in Bucky, and I beat him when he was running against the Speaker in 2010.Is that correct?How many votes did you get and how many votes did he get?I can't remember the exact numbers, but I got a thousand or so more than him.

Oh, well done.

Put him in third place because, well, then I always knew that Nigel was a big danger to anyone who's afraid of him.And, you know, I think if it had just been him and Bercow, Bercow was so unpopular at the time, because he'd become Speaker with Labour votes and it was a Conservancy, he had a lot of Conservatives, and I think if it had just been him, he would have gone to Parliament very much.I was very determined to stop that, so I ran against him.

But Buckingham, a very different kind of place.

This is the heart and guts of the Brexit rebellion, isn't it?

Douglas Oswald getting elected here, Nigel Farage getting elected here.So what kind of reception does that give?running on Labour like yours get?

That's why a pro -European should run here.Because a large number of people now, ten years after the referendum, recognise that Brexit is a mistake.And what I'm doing is asking people, if you think Brexit was a mistake, tell the man who brought it to you that it wasn't.It's a clear vote.I mean, I never imagined this situation would come up.But there is an opportunity now to ask a clear question to the man himself.

And that's what I'm trying to do.Because if we get any sort of serious anti -Brexit vote here, you'll get it right across the country.

Because, of course, the other candidates tend to be called things like super -tare and he -man.There's a small train going past, too.They're joke candidates.What's missing is a serious candidate.So clearly you're trying to set this up as a binary choice.If Nigel Farage is defined by Brexit, then vote for me because I am the clearest.

Yeah.

If you think Brexit was a mistake, this is your chance to say so.And polling suggests that if nearly 70 % of people now think Brexit was a mistake, probably about 30 % of people in Clacton think it was a mistake.

But there's a tension, isn't there, between people thinking it was a mistake maybe a majority now do, and people actually wanting to go back into it.

Sure, that's true.Of course, that's true.But nevertheless, the first step towards repairing a mistake is to admit it.And I feel that in nations like people, people who make mistakes should correct them as soon as possible, because if you don't correct your mistakes, they get worse.But the beginning of correcting a mistake is to recognise that it's been made.And this isn't in a partisan sense, of you know leavers versus remainers we've got to get over that because actually the brexit

disaster as i would say the referendum was that result was as much the consequence of mistakes made by remainers as it was mistakes made by leavers in my now hang on there clearly are some dividends because for instance the government's cutting that That's something which being outside of the EU allows us to do.

Do you not recognize that?

Well, no, that's not true.

One example of something that Brexit's given us the power to do.

No, that's not true.You can fix your VAT rates on, I mean, for example, we have zero rate children's toys and things, children's toys.No, you can, that's not true that the EU doesn't set a standard VAT rate right across the EU.There are different VAT rates in all sorts of EU countries.No, that's not the case.Right.

The trade deals?Well, what trade deals?The trade deals we've had have been pale copies of the ones that we had when we were in the EU.I mean, the essence of trade deals is the power of your market in a negotiated position.The trade deals we've got are not a patch on what we had inside.You know, they're, what, less than half a percent of GDP in terms of benefit, whereas we've cost, I mean, depending on who you believe, and all these measurements are very, very, uncertain obviously but it's somewhere between four and eight percent of GDP.

Okay part of our identity is also our constitution democracy and our jealous safeguarding of our sovereignty so one might say one can be a perfectly good European in the sense that we trade we recognize we have the same culture as those countries we just think that it's an element of our identity that we take our parliament very seriously and we don't want to share too much of our sovereignty.

Well if we really took our parliament seriously we wouldn't be having a large part of our politics suggesting that a dustbin can be an MP.I mean the tragedy is that we don't actually take our politics that seriously.I mean, one of the problems, there is no question that there is a challenge to democracy around the world, in the West particularly.And this is something that is very worrying.And it's particularly true in the United States.I mean, we may know in November whether the United States is a proper democracy.

and the links between the MAGA movement in America and reform is one of the things that worries me most.And the big difference between continental Europe and Britain and America in this context is that the continentals know, East and Western Europe, know that democracies can die.They know what dictatorship really is.They know the warning signs.I'm much more confident about the future of democracy on the continent at the moment than I am in Britain and America, because we believe that, as you've just said, you know, our parliamentary democracy, our sovereignty and all of this, you know, it's beyond question.That makes you vulnerable.

You don't see the dangers.I am staggered by how America, with its constitution, as they're celebrating, well, not quite 250, I don't know if it's a constitution, but of independence, they're celebrating, you know, the separation of powers and things.They all seem to be breaking down.They really do.And The links between that movement in America, which is anti -democratic, particularly when you get to the backers of it in high -tech, that is Peter Thiel, they are plugged in completely with Farage's movement and all these people who want to turn us into the cryptocurrency of Las Vegas.

John, just as fascinating, but I just spotted Camilla waving at me. I think I'm fishing chips around.

Oh, right.

Thank you so much.I really enjoyed your show.Not at all.Not at all.

Tim, we couldn't come to Clacton Pier without going on one of the rides.

Of course we could.Oh my gosh, I want to get off.It's tiny.It's tiny and old and terrifying.

We could have been on that.

I hadn't thought this through.

We could have been on that one over there.Because I don't like heights all that much.

Well, neither do I. It's the going down that hits you.

No, the going down's better.

Right, OK.

What if it stops at the top and we're just dangling?

At least we're not going to be upside down like those poor people.We're in Clacton.

Yes, we've had a good day here, haven't we?We've spoken to punters.

We have, yes.What do you think has been the general mood about the election?

I think a degree of disinterest.

Yeah.

Uninterest.Yeah.Not much interest.I mean, the people who are walking around with reform badges on, I mean, they're very keen.They know what they're doing.They're saying, listen, they agree with him.

They agree with Faraj.It's Faraj versus the establishment.

Yes.

And we're behind him every step of the way.Yes.But then the guy in the spoons who was saying, this is ridiculous.I'm having to choose between Faraj bin and a fish finger.I mean, you can sympathise with him too, right?What's this all about?

Why are we doing it?

Yeah, it does feel like the fag end of the Brexit revolution, doesn't it?Because this constituency is the heart and the guts.of the populist revolution.It all began in 2014 with Douglas Carswell, defected from the Tories to then UKIP, which triggered, he triggered a by -election.He won and that was really the beginning because that then forced David Cameron to adopt his position on Europe and it became the basis for the growth of UKIP.So this is really where it all begins and for it to, I'm not going to say it's going to end, I mean Farage isn't going to lose, but for it to all sort of climax in Farage versus a talking bin.

I don't know what that means.

Well, a talking bin, a fish finger and 31 others.The other thing that shone through here is, as you say, this was a resolutely Tory true blue seat, OK, in the pre -Carswell era.What was their highest vote share?I mean, it was just...

It was in the 70s.

It was enormous, right?And thisto not stand a candidate, which we initially thought, oh, it's stopped.

I think that means it's stopped.It's not broken.Don't worry.

We can't go round a couple of times more, can we?Just a couple of times more for the film.Thank you.Thank you.I think this once -acted absolutely, resolutely Conservative seat for them not to stand a candidate.Initially, it looked clever, because it was then Farage versus Obin, but because there were all the other independents there, we have spoken to voters down here who wouldn't have minded a Tory to vote for, and they haven't been given one.

And equally, if Andy Burnham thinks he's so great, if he literally is the next messiah, why hasn't he got a Labour disciple here?

Well, I think it's more, that question is more valid for Labour, but for the Tories, you know, in every war, you pick the terrain on which you fight your battle.Yes.This is Farage's terrain.We all know that the Brexit vote, the reform vote, is in large part a Conservative vote.So you'd be competing to cannibalise a right -wing vote.Yes.

And you're going to get humiliated whatever you do.So probably best to stay out.

We'll just send a couple of people out.She won't be doing that again, will she?

We know that he still faces hostility here.As we were filming with him, one woman crashed her car because she tried to call him a word that rhymes with banker but begins with a W. He remains a divisive figure, but let's be perfectly honest, if he can't win again here, where can he?

He also has, the use of the word banker is appropriate, he has issues with questions around donations, but also questions about how much time he actually spends in the constituency.Although the thing is, he wouldn't even have to visit and people know who he is.There's no escaping Farage's celebrity status in Glacton.

Exactly that.Right, well we're off for some fish and chips, an ice cream, possibly a sick bag at this stage.

Yeah, I don't think about foods.I don't think anyone'sridden this since it was put up in 1978.

I don't think it's been ridden since Farage's entire life.

Oh my gosh, I left my stomach somewhere down by the sea.

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