Jessica and Simon are right about Farage: the public-school son of a stockbroker, on two million a year, telling a town he is about to drown that he speaks for it. They have also read the Count’s manifesto, which is more than most newspapers managed. And the Posadas joke is very good.
But Count Binface is not a socialist. He is not anti-neoliberal, and he is not a working-class alternative. Comic candidates look anti-establishment and say the right thing on some issues, but they have no class politics and nothing holding them to account, so what happens to them is decided by everything except the joke. Coluche polled into double figures for the French presidency in 1981 and then slid out of politics, and the anger he had gathered went nowhere. Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement filled the space left by the collapse of the Italian left, and ended up in government with Salvini’s hard right. Neither built anything for the working class.
Anticapitalists should not endorse him, because endorsing a candidate says we support his politics. I don’t.
Jessica and Simon say themselves that there is no credible socialist candidate in Clacton and no movement to mobilise against Farage, because the working class has been crushed for generations. That is the true and important part of their article. They treat it as the reason to back the Count. I think it is the thing the left has to answer for.
Ask what people in Clacton will have on 14 August that they didn’t have on the 12th. Whoever wins, nothing. No branch, no tenants’ union, no organiser in Jaywick, which the government’s own figures call the most deprived neighbourhood in England. A Binface win removes a man and builds nothing, and as the article says, Farage winning doesn’t stop the corruption inquiry anyway.
That isn’t telling anyone they are wrong to want Farage beaten. I understand why many will vote for the Count to do it. Reform is a hard-right party, Restore Britain is a far-right party, and there is a British Democratic Party candidate on this ballot whose politics draw on the BNP and the National Front. Beating them at the ballot box matters. But it is no substitute for beating them in the communities where they were built, and in the poorest seat in England that work has not been done.
A bin is the people’s champion in Clacton because anticapitalists weren’t there. That is a judgment on us, not a punchline. Bin day comes and goes. Jaywick is still there on Friday, and so is the work.
davekell
2m
You are right your response is a bit po faced. I dont think Simon and Jessica actually endorse voting for Binface and certainly do not suggest that the ACR should call for a vote for him in the same way that we clearly called for a vote (correctly imo) for the Greens in the Gorton byelection. Most of their article uses the peg of the widespread interest in Binface to make some educational eco socialist arguments. You are right – and i am sure Jessie and Duncan agree – that satirical candidates like Binface are not a way forward for the working class struggle. As you say it leaves nothing the day after. However what they do recognise – and maybe you underestimate this a little – is that objectively a big vote for Binface creates major problems for Farage#s project which is already being weakened by the emergence of Burnham . the latter has a few policies that may win back Reform voters and is a much stronger politician and communicator than Starmer. One other thing on Grillo. Unlike Colouche or BInface after comedic stunts (VAfanculo day) he did develop a serious political project with active branches around the country as well as a huge social media presence. It has a legacy with a party of around 12% or so which has a few positions often to the left of the PD. It was Conte and the M5S movement who were responsible for winning the citizens income reform which has been a material gain for the poorest sections of the working class. I have friends in Italy who are progressive and identify to an extent with the M5s. Grillo himself has exited the political scene.
This isn’t really accurate “Coluche polled into double figures for the French presidency in 1981 and then slid out of politics, and the anger he had gathered went nowhere.” “Coluche also founded in 1985 the charity “Les Restaurants du Cœur” which still provides free meals and other products to people in need.” (Wikipedia) So he is still recognised as somebody who did something for the poor.
Penny: I had written about that earlier at https://redmole.org/p/the-comedian-in-the-empty-field He _absolutely_ left politics (if that term means anything, it does not include apolitical charity).
Dave: you left the same comment on RedMole so people can see my response at
https://redmole.org/p/why-i-cant-endorse-count-binface
Phil: you understand that I am not saying we should parachute in a socialist candidate, so stop the straw dolls.
You are right that there is no working class socialist organisation in Clacton but that isn’t going to change in the next six weeks and standing a socialist candidate with no existing local support is not the way to get one.No one is voting for Binface because they think he has a radical programme for government. So saying he is not a proper socialist is rather missing the point.
I agree. We should not be Team Binface. While it is mildly amusing, I find the joke wears off pretty quickly when you hear it for the second time. If he were elected to parliament, by some miracle, there is no way of knowing what positions he would take and there would be zero accountability to anyone, least of all to the voters of Clacton.