Nigel Farage beats Count Binface in widely mocked election

LONDON -- Nigel Farage beat trash-can wearing comic candidate Count Binface on Friday, regaining a seat in Parliament he quit a month ago to trigger the widely mocked special election.Farage, leader of the anti-immigration Reform UK party who some see as a possible next prime minister, abruptly quit his seat in July amid an investigation into whether he failed to report a 5 million pound ($6.7 million) gift from a crypto billionaire overseas.He said he would run for the open seat to prove he had voters’ support, and regain it with 63% of the vote. Binface, who finished in second, won about 27%. The election, held on the hottest day of the year so far, had turnout of 44%.Binface, a serial candidate who has challenged prime ministers past and present, became the default challenger in a field of 34 candidates after the major parties boycotted the campaign as a political stunt by Farage.Farage declared victory in the early morning and did not attend the official declaration where he would have had to stand alongside the other candidates, many of them running joke campaigns.Farage said he didn’t attend because police told him about an “organized campaign to disrupt and degrade the resul...