“I will engage that there is not, even among the lowest class of the people, a single man now to be found in England, who would not laugh to scorn any attempt to make him believe that one of the parties is better than the other.”

William Cobbett, Political Register, 23 March 1816

When was the last time a British political leader said, “to hell with the system, my mandate comes from the people who elected me”? Most of them have the self-awareness to appreciate that Cobbett’s observation from over two centuries ago applies to them too.

There have only been two mass leaders of British political organisations in recent years whose followers have been willing to forgive all their highly visible faults. Johnson got away with it for years but crashed and burned, so he doesn’t count.

 Jeremy Corbyn has lost a lot of his sheen with his mismanagement of Your Party, but he still has a loyal fan base even if most of supporters who don’t have free bus passes have now defected to the Green Party.

Nigel Farage’s supporters also tend to be on the wrong side of 55 and when asked to explain why they like him tend to say that it’s because he’s made racism respectable again. Voters who approve of violent protests outside buildings housing asylum seekers are not likely to be too morally punctilious about lots of things.

There is a lot of humour to be had in Farage’s predicament, not the least of which was Count Binface being interviewed by the BBC explaining that he lives on planet Sigma 9 and is travelling through interstellar space to stand in the Clacton by-election. It is probably tactically correct for the other parties not to give credibility to Farage’s stunt, but the ridicule misses the point.

Reform voters support a party who had Lucy Connolly as a star turn at its conference. She went to prison for inciting people to set fire to hotels in which migrants live. An electorate which is supportive of calls to burn people with dark skins to death is not likely to be overly squeamish about a spivvy politician getting dodgy gifts from crypto tycoons. For them it is the shamelessness about the racism and self-enrichment which is the attraction.

Reform’s voters are among the most reactionary, demoralised and racist sections of the British working class. Restore UK’s have bested them in that competition. Neither they nor Farage give a tuppenny fuck about the proceduralism and conventions that excite parliamentarians and journalists. That is Farage’s great strength and while those of us who despise everything he represents can laugh at him, he is using this fight to reinforce his message and demonstrate to his supporters that they can defeat the political class.

Farage has come out fighting and the privately educated multi-millionaire has turned to a section of the working class to help him win. That is the political heart of the Clacton election.