what the hell is going on
i believe in you Binface. you can do it. this could be your moment.
Please god it would be so funny
there is no downside to voting for Count Binface. its not taking away from other candidates bcos they aren't any and the more votes he gets the stupider Farage looks.
for people out of the loop:
Nigel Farage is the leader of Reform UK, a far right party who are currently in the process of a serious bid to become the UK government. they are just straight up evil.
Count Binface is an intergalactic space warrior with a bin on his head. he likes to run as a novelty candidate in general and mayoral elections. a big thing he likes to do is run as a candidate against the incumbent prime minister:
(Also pictured: Boris Johnson, Elmo)
Anyway, in brief:
Nigel Farage is currently in the midst of a big scandal about his finances
He has decided to deal with this by 1) making a show of nobly resigning from parliament and then 2) immediately running in the resulting by-election
He has stated that he is letting 'the people' judge his actions and implied that if he wins that will prove that he has been exonerated in the court of public opinion
His goal was presumably to get a big resounding win over the other parties, proving that The People still love him.
the other parties have thus far decided that this is a 'vanity election' and, well, there is one very easy way to ensure that he will not beat any of them, and that is simply not to play.
and as a result the only person who has so far confirmed they are running against him is Count Binface. no matter the outcome this makes Nigel Farage look like, u know, a fucking clown.
So what happens if Count Binface actually wins? Does he join Parliament? Does he have to take the bin off his face?
I've seen some people saying he would have to give up his title but it would seem that is no longer the case as of 1999; so, no, he can keep his ceremonial bin if he wishes.
Important to note also that Count Binface is the alter ego of comedian & political satirist Jon Harvey who seems to be an intelligent individual with reasonable politics. As I said no real downside.
The no hats rule clearly does not apply to him. He is not wearing a hat. It's a bin.
One other factor of this is that MPs can't actually resign. They have to request to be given one of two jobs which cannot be held by an MP. This is in the gift of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give. (There was something of a revolving door when Tory MPs were resigning a couple of years ago. Some of the holders were in post for less than a day, iirc).
There is more than a whiff of suspicion that Farage is stepping down to stall an investigation into his funding sources. There have been calls for the Chancellor to refuse his resignation.
Her response:
