The Westminster Desk | Brief
The Clacton ballot is set, and it is the largest in British parliamentary history: 34 candidates, confirmed in the statement of persons nominated published by Tendring District Council on Friday and posted, in the traditional manner, on the doors of Clacton Town Hall.
The record
The previous record for a UK parliamentary contest was 26 candidates, at the Haltemprice and Howden by-election of 2008. Clacton passes it by eight. Every one of the 34 delivered nomination papers signed by ten registered electors and a 500 pound deposit, which is returned only to candidates polling above 5 per cent. On current polling, the deposit pool alone will make this among the more profitable contests the Treasury has run.
The field
The confirmed candidates include Nigel Farage for Reform UK, Count Binface, Laurence Fox for Reclaim, and Howling Laud Hope for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, alongside a record number of independents and small-party candidates. The boycott held: Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and Restore Britain filed no papers.
What the ballot paper now represents
The frontrunner is under a paused standards inquiry that resumes only if he wins. His principal challenger, per national preference polling, is a bin. The largest field in history has assembled for a contest every major party declined to enter. All three facts survive contact with the official document on the Town Hall doors.
What to watch: the first constituency vote-intention poll of the confirmed field, and the ballot paper itself, which at 34 names will run to multiple columns and, per electoral administrators, some length.
