Coastal town looks set to elect Trump ally Farage

CLACTON-ON-SEA, England — Just a handful of holidaymakers dot the pier of what was once a bustling seaside resort. But change is in the air in Clacton-on-Sea, a sleepy backwater that may become the vanguard for the British right wing after electing Nigel Farage, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, to Parliament on Thursday. 

“He hasn’t proven himself, but we’ll give him a chance,” said Neville Hurling, 67, as he sat outside on the patio of the Moon and Starfish Wetherspoon pub last week during a rare mini heat wave. 

Farage, who leads the right-wing Reform UK party and is one of Britain’s most divisive public figures, had celebrated the launch of his campaign from the same pub just days earlier. While the center-left Labour Party looks set to sweep the Conservatives out of power after 14 years in Thursday’s general election, polls indicate that Farage could be chosen to represent Clacton.

“The Tories are absolutely useless, Labour are absolutely useless,” Hurling said. “It’s something different for Clacton.” 

Enervated by years of political disarray and scandal, a bleak economic outlook marked by a spiraling cost-of-living crisis and a health care system on its knees, millions across Britain are hoping for “something different” after this election cycle. 

In Clacton, the desire for change could well result in a vote for the far-right, as many who say the country has lost its way economically, socially and politically are enthusiastic about Farage’s promises to “take our country back” and his vehemently anti-immigrant stance.  

Farage is not new to Clacton, which lies around 80 miles northeast of London.

Eight years ago, Clacton voted overwhelmingly for Britain to exit the European Union. At the time, Farage was leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party, or UKIP, a key architect of Brexit and considered partly responsible for dragging the Conservative Party to the right. 

Then, as now, Farage campaigned on the very same promise: He pledged to “take back control” of Britain’s borders, laws and economy.

But his history with Clacton goes back further to 2014, when Conservative MP Douglas Carswell jumped ship from his party to join UKIP under Farage. Carswell was re-elected and became one of just two lawmakers to ever represent the nationalist party in Parliament.

Farage, an ebullient and media-friendly firebrand who has run seven unsuccessful campaigns for office in Britain, did not respond to requests for an interview. 

His message lands for many in Clacton who hanker for a time when British holidaymakers flocked to seaside resorts like this one instead of looking to Europe and beyond for their summer travels. Now, economic inactivity hovers at over 40% in Clacton, nearly twice the national  average of 21.3%, according to government labor data. 

Economic growth remained sluggish across the U.K. after the global financial crisis of 2008, with the population grappling with the impacts of Brexit, Covid-19 and, more recently, an energy pricing surge. Since the pandemic, Britain has had the second weakest economy in the G7. 

Dissatisfaction with the economy is widespread, with just 22% of people in the U.K. saying they believe the country’s economic situation is “good,” compared to 78% who say it’s in poor shape, according to a Pew Research Center poll. 

With rising inflation, a nationwide cost-of-living crisis and the sense that basic services are failing, many here feel increasingly disenfranchised, disillusioned and dismissed by those in power in London.

“They just live in a different world, ivory towers,” Nicholas Phillips, 68, a full-time foster carer who has lived in Clacton his whole life, said of Labour leader Keir Starmer and Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. 

“There’s no money for anything — we’ve got so many illegals,” said Phillips, using a derogatory term referring to migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees who arrive in the U.K. outside of legalized routes. 

“We’re in dead trouble, like America,” he said at the pub, sitting alongside Hurling.

Signs of economic malaise abound around Hurling and Phillips, two childhood friends. 

Trevor Hahn, a reverend at Christ Church, a local United Reformed Church in Clacton, said he has noticed more and more churchgoers asking for financial help and other assistance from the church.

Meanwhile, local real estate agent Jason Burton said his company has seen a significant increase in home sales because homeowners have fallen behind on their mortgages and other bills. Storefronts have sat empty for years due to soaring rental costs, he added. 

Clacton encapsulates the wider political malaise affecting other parts of Britain, experts say, with low voter turnout widely anticipated in the upcoming election as many across the country feel increasingly politically homeless — and hopeless about the future. 

Just over 67% of people registered to vote in the U.K.’s last general election in 2019 cast their ballots, compared with 68.8% in 2017. John Curtice, one of Britain’s leading polling experts, said he wouldn’t be surprised if voter turnout is “on the low side” again.

“There’s clearly considerable disenchantment for the current government, but there isn’t a lot of enthusiasm for the alternative,” he said. 

Calling Farage “the most influential politician in 21st-century British politics,” Curtice added that in towns like Clacton, where disillusionment is particularly acute, an exceptional orator like Farage will attract support by promising to restore the country to what some see as its former glory.

Much like his Brexit campaign, Farage’s election platform relies heavily on pledges to end mass immigration to the U.K., even though a recent poll by IPSOS suggests that voters are far more concerned about the economy and ailing health system. 

Net migration to the U.K. soared in 2023 to an estimated 685,000, compared with pre-pandemic estimates of between 200,000 to 300,000, according to the Migration Observatory, part of Oxford University’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society.

The rise came amid intensified government efforts to stop migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees from coming to the U.K. across the English Channel in small boats. In recent years, the U.K. saw a rise in the number of small boats detected crossing the English Channel, with their numbers rising to 46,000 in 2022, before dropping in 2023 down to around 29,000, according to government data.

Sunak pledged to address the issue in part by sending some asylum-seekers to Rwanda to await decisions on their cases — a move that sparked widespread condemnation from immigration and human rights organizations like the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

But in the eight years since the Brexit referendum, E.U. migration into the U.K. has dropped, while emigration of E.U. citizens from Britain has been on the rise, according to Robert McNeil, deputy director of the Migration Observatory. 

This means that Brexit “successfully delivered what it said it was going to deliver” — a drop, particularly in “low-skilled migration” from E.U. member states, he said.

In Clacton, advocates have warned that, in the midst of Farage’s anti-immigration campaign, reports of hate crimes have been on the rise. Refugee, Asylum Seeker & Migrant Action, a local organization that operates as a hate crime reporting center, reported a threefold increase in reports of alleged hate crimes in the area since Farage announced his election bid.

“It’s like the top has come off a bottle that was ready to burst and he’s given permission for people to say what they feel,” Maria Wilby, director of RAMA, said in a phone interview.

Shahood Bin Dawood, a 36-year-old man from Pakistan who has been temporarily housed in Clacton as he awaits a decision on his asylum application, said the reported rise in hate crimes frightens him. 

“Now, I don’t feel safe,” he said.

Farage’s anti-immigration messaging resonated with some who see irregular immigration as a reason for their financial woes. But Hurling and Phillips also questioned the motivations of those coming to the U.K., echoing a different angle of Farage’s messaging. 

“If all these people that come off the boat get together, I think it’s some sort of underlying threat,” Phillips said. 

“We don’t know who they are,” Hurling added.

Reform UK faces a backlash after campaigners were filmed making racist and homophobic remarks. Farage later condemned the views expressed in the videos as “appalling.” 

The anti-hate group Hope, Not Hate has long accused Farage of stoking racist and hateful views toward migrants and asylum-seekers.

While Farage’s views might be gaining traction among some, not everyone is sold on his vision. 

With “no money … no jobs, no prospects” Clacton needs change, Nicola Wells, 56, who owns Nikki’s Cafe Bistro, said. “But Farage isn’t the change.” 

And both she and her son Kofi Wells, 22, who works at the cafe, said they were concerned by Farage’s growing popularity in town. 

“He is inciting hate, isn’t he?” Nicola Wells said. “‘Make Britain British again’: That is inciting hate. I’m British — my family comes from Jamaica but I’m British and lots of people are British.”

Meanwhile, regulars at the cafe, Anthony and Lee Swash, both 71, who have lived in Clacton for more than 30 years after moving from north London, said they’re so disillusioned with Britain’s future that they’re considering sitting this election out. 

“I don’t know who to vote for,” said Lee, a retired bank secretary who shares three children and six grandchildren with her husband. “They all tell lies.” 

Still, both Lee and Anthony said they share Farage supporters’ concerns about the economy — as well as over immigration to the U.K. — but don’t believe any candidate in the upcoming election has what it takes to address those issues.

“It upsets me when I’ve got my six grandchildren,” says Anthony. “What are they going to do when they get older? What’s it going to be like?” 

“We used to rule the world,” he said. “We don’t even rule the country now.”