by Democrat reporterFarage won with 22,239 votes, with Count Binface in second place on 9,455 votes, ahead of 32 other candidates. Farage secured a 12,784-vote majority, 63.34 per cent of the vote.
This is up from his 8,405-vote majority, 46.2 per cent, when he won at the 2024 general election. The result was declared shortly after 6 am.
The Reform UK leader pre-empted the official declaration by telling supporters he had won “fairly convincingly” and the result on the hottest day of the year was an “overwhelming endorsement” of him.
Farage said this before the declaration of the result at Clacton Leisure Centre as Essex Police had told him about an “organised campaign to disrupt and degrade the result”.
A Reform UK spokesperson later said: “Essex Police advised Nigel not to attend the count tonight due to a credible threat against him.”
A spokesperson for Essex Police said: “We have a proportionate and robust policing operation to ensure the safety and security of all participants in the count.”
Farage told supporters at an all-night “Farage-fest” event organised by Reform in Essex he would not be attending the count.
“I’m not scared of these people, far from it,” he said.
”But I’m damned if I’m going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory, a ringing endorsement of all that I’ve tried to fight for, and you’ve tried to fight for, and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies, and I will not sadly be attending the count.”
Farage was due to make what was billed as a “major speech” in Clacton at 10.30 am on Friday, but Reform cancelled it, saying he had “already commented on the expected result of the by-election”.
In his speech, Farage said, hours before the result was formally declared: “The verdict is now in, and it is a convincing, overwhelming win with more votes than we got in the general election of 2024.”
He added: “Today the voters in Clacton have stuck up two fingers to the entire political establishment.”