Nigel Farage understands the zeitgeist better than anyone – and the people of Clacton know it

In the end it was a walk-over. Having tried, and failed, on seven occasions to win a seat in Parliament, the most controversial, disruptive, and in many ways most significant, British politician of the last 25 years finally won the opportunity to fulfil his promise to sit in the House of Commons and “make a bloody nuisance” of himself.

Wearing a mid-blue suit and tie and a Cheshire cat grin, Farage, 60, overturned a Conservative majority of 24,702 to win the Clacton seat, displaying an undisguised glee not only at his own result, but at the performance of Reform candidates across the country exceeding even Farage’s most optimistic expectations, and at the cost of the Conservative party that he clearly despises.

Four weeks and three days since Farage decided, as he put it, “to come out of retirement and throw my hat in the ring”, he defeated the Conservative candidate by more than 8,000 votes.

Speaking immediately after the result he said this was “this is the beginning of the end of the Conservative Party” and the “first step of something that is going to stun all of you”.

If not exactly a shoo-in, Clacton was the constituency where Farage might have most expected to win. The seat is categorised by the Electoral Calculus forecasting website as being part of the “Strong Right” demographic. The electorate comprises among the eldest in the country. Seventy per cent voted for Brexit.

The constituency has been solidly Conservative for the past 24 years, other than the brief period when the sitting MP Tory Douglas Carswell defected to UKIP in 2014, retaining his seat in the 2015 General Election. Carswell quit UKIP in 2017, endorsing Giles Watling as the Conservative candidate, who won the seat that year, and increased his majority in 2019.

While the other candidates had gathered at the count an hour or two before the declaration, Farage delayed his arrival until almost the last minute, stepping out a Range Rover with blacked-out windows into a mob of waiting photographers and reporters. Do you want to lead the Conservative Party, a voice shouted. Farage laughed. “What a terrible idea. What a ghastly bunch they are.”

Farage’s constituency encompasses large swathes of agricultural land, with a coastline running from, at one end, Frinton-on-Sea, with its largely retired population, neatly tended gardens and genteel air to, at the other, Jaywick, which in 2019 was named as the most deprived area in Britain, and where Farage was to be found campaigning vigorously in the hours before polling closed. He arrived in a decommissioned armoured military vehicle and established a base (inevitably) in a pub, before taking to the streets, shaking hands and posing for selfies amidst excited bystanders and a bemused Danish TV crew – as one veteran observer put it – “like Tony Blair in 1997 in a kiss-me-quick hat.’’

Farage had then stopped off for a drink at a restaurant on Clacton seafront, where he was to be found when the exit poll came in at 10pm, celebrating at the prediction that Reform would win 13 seats. It may not quite reach that number, but is significant nonetheless.

Clacton itself is in many ways, a typical English seaside resort. Edwardian hotels and guest-houses that have seen better days; a funfair, largely deserted, a local theatre whose forthcoming attractions include a raft of tribute acts to Wham, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Duran Duran, and – ‘direct from London’s West End’ – Dreamboys Stripped Back. There are mobility scooters – and attractions of some historical significance – at the Gaiety Amusement Arcade, above which, with no discernible sense of irony, Reform had installed their campaign headquarters, and the McDonalds where the milkshake was purchased that was thrown at Nigel Farage four weeks ago, when he stepped out of the Moon and Starship pub.

Inside at lunchtime on election day the pub was filled mostly with elderly drinkers, many paying cash, and all standing firmly behind ‘Nige’. These were his people.

On the street, the sentiment was somewhat different. A former Conservative voter named Alastair who had intended to vote Reform said he had changed his mind following Farage’s pronouncements about Russia and Reform candidates jumping ship, with one claiming the “majority of the party is racist, misogynistic and bigoted”.

“That was the nail in the coffin for me,” Alastair said. He was returning to the Tories, “and all my friends feel the same way.” Evidently, though, not enough of them.

Farage’s capacity to alter the alchemy of whatever he touches was evident throughout the contest. Among his rival candidates was Tony Mack, a psychotherapist and former black-cab driver, and the original candidate for Reform who was obliged to step aside when Farage decided to run, and who instead ran as an independent.

Mack subsequently claimed that he had been offered “a very big role” in Farage’s campaign team and a salaried job in the constituency for his endorsement, but has complained that none of what he was offered was delivered. A Reform UK spokesperson described the situation as “very sad”, and said that the party “operated in good faith.” At a rally near the town’s pier, Mr Farage thanked “Tony McIntyre” who he said had “very gracefully stood aside” and would play a “big, key, leading role in this campaign”

Meanwhile the Labour candidate, 27-year-old Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, described as “the best dressed man in politics”, had not been seen in Clacton since June 19 after reportedly being told by party leaders to stop campaigning in the constituency, because he was gaining too much attention. This was after pictures of Owusu-Nepaul bumping into Farage while canvassing in Frinton had gone viral on social media, prompting a source at Labour headquarters to complain that he was “getting more retweets than Keir Starmer”, and “distracting” from the Labour leader’s campaign.

Whatever you may think of him, and he is probably the most polarising figure in British politics, Farage is also the most interesting personality, a man who understands the zeitgeist probably better than anyone, with an unerring ability to speak to people who are sick of politics and politicians, who feel disenfranchised, disillusioned and betrayed.

More than self-assurance, he has a complete absence of self-doubt or any capacity for embarrassment or regret.

In an interview this week with the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, Farage talked of how “we want to completely abolish” the diversity and inclusion laws and the Equalities Act. He told the story of being asked by one person ‘‘what am I going to do for the black community”. “Do you know what I said? Absolutely nothing. I couldn’t give a damn whether you’re black or white, gay or straight – I really don’t care. You’ll be judged by your character, by your ability, you’ll be judged by whether you are a contributor to society or a taker-out.” Few politicians of any stripe would be prepared to put that quite so bluntly.

For the past 25 years Farage has stood on the sidelines, a Cassandra warning of Britain’s drift to purgatory – the only man, he says, who can arrest it, and “fill the massive gap on the centre right in British politics and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“My plan,” he said, speaking after the result, “is to build a mass national movement over the course of the next few years and hopefully be big enough to challenge for the General Election properly in 2029.

“What is interesting is there’s no enthusiasm for Labour, there’s no enthusiasm for Starmer whatsoever. This Labour government will be in trouble very, very quickly and we will now be targeting Labour votes. We’re coming for Labour, be in no doubt about that.”

Earlier in the evening two young boys had been standing outside the leisure centre watching the media circus arrive. They’d heard of Nigel Farage. “Is he going to be Prime Minister?” one asked.

He would certainly like to be.

“Is he a kn*b head?” The people of Clacton – and millions more across the country – don’t think so.