Under battered England flags, cynicism, pessimism and exhaustion stalk the streets of Clacton.
As the byelection called by Nigel Farage approaches, one young couple do not know which candidates are standing. Neither has ever voted. Living in Britain is “depressing”, says the woman in a black floral dress. “The cost of living these days is stupid,” says her partner, wearing a black and grey mechanic’s shirt and a black and red cap. They both work 40 or 50 hours a week, he says, yet “we’re still struggling to pay rent, food, electric, everything else”. They rarely get a day off, and time spent together is rarer still.
No wonder they are not agonising over the £5m personal gift Farage received from a Thailand-based crypto billionaire, or the donations in kind from a convicted fraudster. Life is already taking up all their time.
Communities across Britain have endured stagnation and decline since the financial crash of 2008, but Clacton has more problems than most. Families still descend on the flashing arcades and fairground rides of Clacton pier, but nothing has replaced the economic world swept away by the decline of the English seaside holiday. Clacton is among the top 10% of deprived English constituencies. One neighbourhood is ranked the most deprived in England.
Yet the scandal over Farage’s income provokes precious little anger here. “I know how corrupt everything is,” says a former soldier, who served 22 years. “It’s just part and parcel of politics.” The belief that all politicians are on the take – and that Farage is therefore no different – is everywhere. Tell people that other politicians are not receiving £5m lump sums from foreign billionaires and many simply shrug. Contempt for politicians has become Farage’s protection.
Some come up with their own comforting explanations. A flat cap-wearing man in a wheelchair, who arrived here from Cyprus six decades ago, assumes Farage might invest the £5m in the local community.
There is concern, but it is crowded out by other grievances. “That’s the bit that bothers me,” says one elderly man, before adding something more revealing. “Do you want him as a prime minister? Probably not, but what choice do we have?”
Farage continues to profit from the belief that both Labour and the Conservatives have failed in office. A middle-aged man in a navy polo shirt says he will vote Reform because “the others have just given me a load of rubbish”. The deceit of the toppled prime minister has left its mark. “That Keir Starmer was a complete liar,” he says.
Farage also benefits from what voters project on to him. When I approach one elderly couple, the man is promptly abandoned by his wife, who correctly anticipates that he will answer at length. He regrets voting for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives – and, before that, Margaret Thatcher. “She sold us off,” he says. “Water, telecoms.”
Why, then, I ask, support someone who regards Thatcher as a political hero? “You’ve got to give them a chance,” he replies, apparently without noticing that he has repeatedly regretted doing exactly that.
Only around one in 20 residents here was born abroad, and 96% are white, yet migration and race loom over the constituency. Economic grievance inevitably plays a part. When I suggest to one affable young man covered in tattoos that migrants are blamed for the country’s problems, he agrees. “It’s an easy route out, isn’t it?”
He still intends to vote for Farage, because “I believe he does what he says he’s going to do”. Unfortunately, he cannot say what that is.
But economics cannot explain everything. Disinformation about migrants and refugees – promoted by sections of the media and spread online – has cut through. One middle-aged couple told me they would have voted for the far-right Restore party, had it fielded a candidate. They grow increasingly agitated as we speak.
“Eighty-five per cent of Muslim women can’t even speak English, and that’s a fact,” says the man. Where did he get this statistic? Annoyed at being asked for evidence, he eventually says it came “from news” and tells me to “go and look it up”.
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After they leave, I do. According to recent census data, two-thirds of Muslim women have English as their main language, with 87.7% speaking the language proficiently. Among British-born women, nearly all have English as their main language.
This is what happens when real anger at a country in crisis collides with lies about who has caused it. “This country’s in a right mess,” says a bald, weather-beaten, middle-aged man, his sleeveless shirt open at the chest. When I ask what is wrong, he answers pithily: “Everything about it, everything.”
Unless there is a secret army of shy Count Binface voters, the comedy writer turned “independent space warrior” – popular on social media – will not triumph here. I find only a couple of people intending to plump for him.
That’s not to say there isn’t dissent. Outside a cafe, an elderly man with a wispy grey ponytail and sunglasses pushed back on his head nurses a drink from a white mug, an England flag hanging in the window behind him. He tells me he has Asperger’s and has “always known from a young age that we’re all the same”.
Farage, he argues, is riding in “on a white charger to rescue them from the refugees”, even though “I don’t believe Nigel Farage is for the working man”. Politicians roll up their sleeves and affect the common touch, but “they’re a different class. They’re the ruling class, and it’s the same fucking ruling class all the time”.
He has lost his soulmate and says he rarely leaves home. In a town where so many are resigned to cynicism, he has a simple prescription: “We’ve got one world,” he says. “Let’s look after it and let’s look after each other.”
Clacton is not uniquely prejudiced, nor is it afflicted by mass stupidity. You can’t blame the people here for their prevailing pessimism. Neither the Tories nor Labour have rescued coastal towns like this from their pronounced decline – nor Britain as a whole from a generation of stagnation. The anger is real: work that doesn’t pay, public services that have been stripped back, communities not invested in. The people of Clacton have concluded that if the main parties have no answers, why not bet on something else?
But a crypto billionaire-funded multimillionaire with multiple jobs who blames migrants for their ills is hardly the solution. Indeed, Farage wants to double down on the very economic policies that have caused so much pain. One young man intending to vote for Farage complains about Labour attacking disability benefits. “Yeah, but they’re all trying to do that,” he says bleakly. “Everyone’s trying to do it.” The only way out is surely a politics which ends people’s resignation to decline – and offers some optimism.
