Farage and Count Binface go head-to-head in snap UK poll

Voters in eastern England head to the polls Thursday for a by-election triggered by hard-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, but amid a boycott by mainstream parties his main rival is a joke candidate called Count Binface. Polling stations open at 7:00 am (0600 GMT) with a total of 34 candidates in the running, forcing Farage to face off against dozens of fringe candidates, including Binface. Brexit backer Farage – whose anti-immigration Reform UK won local elections in May and topped national polls for 18 months from early last year – has remained defiant. He has framed the by-election as "the people of Clacton versus the Establishment", branding newspaper probes and official investigations into his finances and questionable donations to his anti-immigration party as a "stitch-up". "Britain needs Reform, Britain wants Reform, and Britain demands a general election," he said in a statement late Wednesday. Farage is widely expected to retain the eastern Essex seat, which voted overwhelmingly for Brexit in the 2016 referendum, and political analysts have downplayed the vote's wider significance. "It seems unlikely that the by-election will be consequential for British politics," Uni...