And now, the biggest Brexiteer of them all, super-disruptor Nigel Farage, is running to represent this slice of southeast England, promising to make himself a “bloody nuisance” in Westminster if he wins.
Farage appears to have a decent shot in his eighth attempt to become a British lawmaker. (He was elected four times to the European Parliament in Brussels, which he said he loathed.)
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As before, right-wing populist Farage is focusing on the dangers of immigration. But with the Conservative Party flailing — and resistance to far-right parties diminishing across much of Europe — his newly reborn Reform UK party could play an outsize role in Britain’s July 4 elections. Some analysts say Reform UK could bring about a political realignment.
The last time Britain went to the polls in a general election, Boris Johnson led the Conservatives to a landslide under the banner “Get Brexit done.”
So it is revealing that five years later, neither the Conservatives nor Labour — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak nor his challenger Keir Starmer — use the “B-word” much. For Conservative Brexit backers, there isn’t much to boast about. For Labour, comfortably 20 points ahead in the polls, it’s not worth reviving divisions.
This weird amnesia hasn’t infected Farage. Or people in Clacton. They have plenty to say about leaving the E.U.
Brexit, in retrospect, turned out to be “a bit of a con job,” said Trevor Harris, 58.
Harris, who works as a caregiver, was among the locals enjoying a few moments of late sunshine outside the Never Say Die pub in Jaywick, an area in the Clacton constituency that has regularly been cited in government reports as the one of the most deprived neighborhoods in England.
Harris warned of “no go” zones in the area. There are a lot of drugs, he said, and young people without work. “We look after each other,” he said. “But this is a hard place.”
Clacton has one of the highest proportions of people classed as “economically inactive” in Britain, with higher crime rates and poorer health than nearby towns.
Harris said it was natural for people to look for reasons to understand their plight, but too easy to blame immigrants for all of Britain’s problems. “Look around, do you see any immigrants here? Taking what jobs?”
He said he would not be voting for Farage but acknowledged many of his neighbors would.
His mates at the pub picnic tables had harsher words. They said they had been cheated of the benefits they were promised. No, Brexit hasn’t brought an economic boom to Clacton — that question from a reporter got a laugh. There has been no windfall for the National Health Service and no drop in immigration, either.
Prime Ministers David Cameron and Theresa May pledged that Brexit would reduce immigration to “the tens of thousands.” Johnson, too, said “the overall number would come down,” and Sunak vowed to “stop the boats” trying to illegally cross the English Channel.
The Office for National Statistics estimates that net migration to Britain last year was 685,000, another record.
On the side of the Farage campaign bus is the promise to “slash immigration.” That appeals to those who believe Britain is being overwhelmed by too many people too fast — newcomers who are not only competing for health care, jobs, homes and education, but who are simply different.
At the Broadway Social Club in Jaywick, the locals were singing karaoke, with one lovely rendition of Sting’s nostalgic crooner “Fields of Gold.”
A woman selling raffle tickets for local charities, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she didn’t want to upset her neighbors, said: “This is a poor community. The young people try, but … we’re in a terrible mess.”
“I hope he does something, anything, really,” she said. “But he’s not from around here, is he?”
Farage is from southeast England. British election rules don’t require candidates to live where they are running. Last week, he greeted well-wishers in a newly opened Clacton campaign headquarters above an arcade.
Andrew Clemmit and Linda Blackwell, a middle-aged couple with a holiday home in Clacton, got a selfie with a beaming Farage and their two dogs.
“Nigel will win Clacton, I am sure,” said Clemmit, who runs a home heating service. He said he was disappointed in Johnson, “who became all ‘woke’ and green” and let Brexit “get stopped by the politicians.” He had nothing good to say about Sunak.
Blackwell, who runs a gym, said: “I like everything Nigel says. He’s the only one who tells us the truth.”
Asked about Sunak, Blackwell said, “I don’t trust him.”
What about Labour? They shook their heads no way.
Labour’s Starmer has taken a softer line on immigration, saying his government would scrap Sunak’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, reduce the country’s reliance on overseas workers and offer Britons training with new skills.
The couple praised Farage for his campaign kickoff speech at Clacton Pier, where he said Sunak and the Conservatives had betrayed the hopes of Brexit. “They’ve opened up the borders to mass immigration like we’ve never seen before,” Farage said. “And they deserve to pay a price for that, a big price for that.”
Not everyone in the crowd was won over. A protester threw a milkshake in his face.
After Sunak last week left a D-Day commemoration in Normandy, France, early to get back on the campaign trail, Farage said the prime minister “doesn’t understand” Britain. “He is not patriotic — he doesn’t care about our history, our culture.”
Sunak was born in Britain. His mother and father were immigrants, East African-born Hindus of Punjabi descent.
Farage supporters have been going door-to-door, ringing door bells, handing out fliers. Among them is Tony Finnegan-Butler, 80, a retired sea captain who has campaigned for Farage and his parties — the UK Independence Party, the Brexit Party, and now Reform UK — for almost 30 years.
Finnegan-Butler said he hopes Farage and those who think like him will eventually take over or transform the Conservative Party, like former president Donald Trump and his MAGA base have done with the Republican Party in the United States.
Greeting people in bathrobes, calming barking dogs, Finnegan-Butler was satisfied that about seven in 10 people said they would vote for Farage.
“I love him,” said Ann Bryant, a retiree. She joked that when her son told her, “‘Mum, Farage will just go to the Parliament to make trouble,’” she responded: “Good for him.”
John Clements, 63, a former police officer, was out walking his dog. Asked whether he would vote for Farage, he said he sure would. “The town has become scruffy. It’s not a nice place. Pot holes. Look, they don’t even cut the grass.” He pointed.
Clements described what he saw as the problem. “They keep saying immigrants, immigrants, immigrants. It’s not immigrants. It’s illegal immigrants! And the woke just want more of them. But we’re bursting at the seams. We don’t have enough for our own.”
He said, “England for the English.”
Karla Adam in London contributed to this report.
