Farage beats the bin - so why are Reform MPs livid?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Jon Sopel** (0:04)
Nigel Farage, Proof of Concept, won a huge majority last night on a very decent turnout. But what a shambles the past 24 hours has turned out to be.

**Lewis Goodall** (0:14)
A parliamentary investigation had been instigated about this five million pound gift that he received from Christopher Harbourn. Well, that investigation has already started again.

**Jon Sopel** (0:23)
I thought it was the kind of crudest, most populist Trumpian thing to do, to call a by-election and say, well, if we win this by-election, there is no case to answer. And as you kind of sift through the debris the morning after, it's hard to think that it has achieved anything at all for reform.

**Nigel Farage** (0:42)
I've been advised tonight by Essex Police that there is an organized campaign to disrupt and degrade the result that will take place in a few hours' time. And once again, it shows you the sheer intolerance, the sheer loss of fundamental democratic principles, that those that went before us fought in world wars to fight for and preserve. And this shows you why the battle that we're engaged upon in this great party, in this great movement of ours, is to get this country back to the values that it needs to be.
And so I regret to say, and by the way, I'm not scared of these people, far from it, but I'm damned if I'm going to stand on a stage having won a resounding victory, a ringing endorsement of all that I've tried to fight for and you've tried to fight for and be demeaned and humiliated by nobody's. And I will not sadly be attending the count, which means, which means I'm going to be here all night.

**Lewis Goodall** (2:02)
Was Nigel Farage's victory in Clacton as hollow as the bin he defeated? He says he won more votes than in 2024, and yet he wasn't even on the stage to celebrate his victory.

**Jon Sopel** (2:16)
Reform spokespeople sound techy.
A bin got 27% of the vote. A planned Farage rally this morning has been cancelled. Has this by-election ruse turned into a total shambles? Welcome to The News Agents.

**Nick Ferrari** (2:42)
The News Agents.

**Jon Sopel** (2:43)
It's Jon in London.

**Lewis Goodall** (2:45)
And it's Lewis in Tirana. Sorry? Tirana, Jon.

**Jon Sopel** (2:48)
Tirana?

**Lewis Goodall** (2:49)
It's not an ex-girlfriend of yours. It's the capital of Albania.

**Jon Sopel** (2:54)
We will come to that a little bit later on. But last night, what was more remarkable?
The fact that Nigel Farage got 63% of the vote and won an overwhelming majority and a clear win in his safe seat of Clapton, or was it that Abin got 27% of the vote in this most bizarre by-election that Nigel Farage had called and fought, hoping that it would see away all his financial troubles because the people of Clapton had spoken.
And as you kind of sift through the debris the morning after, it's hard to think that it has achieved anything at all for reform.

**Lewis Goodall** (3:43)
So just a reminder as to how we got here, because without doubt, it has been the weirdest by-election that I can remember. Nigel Farage facing off against, I think, 32 other candidates, many of them joke candidates, obviously Count Bimface, the most well-known among them, the other parties boycotting this by-election. This happened because a parliamentary investigation into Nigel Farage by the Standards Commissioner had been instigated about this five million pound gift that he received from Christopher Harbour and the Thai-based crypto billionaire, very big benefactor to the Reform Party overall. There's been a suggestion that this had not been properly declared. Farage refuted that, denied that, said that this was simply a personal gift, so it didn't have to be declared. And as this investigation was ongoing, pretty much out of nowhere, just at a moment where Farage appeared that he couldn't escape these questions, he was being hammered with them by the media, you know, week after week, having generally received a very favorable press in the entire run up to that period. He out of nowhere decides he's going to fight a by-election, effectively in the end, against himself. Because as I say, the main parties decided that they would boycott that by-election because they said that it was a joke. Now let's just take the very narrow question, the very narrow question of the investigation itself. Reform this morning, and I was speaking to a Reform source this morning, they're saying that this entire question, as far as they're concerned, has been put to bed. Quote from a source, this puts the standards issue to bed as far as we're concerned. And if they really want to do this again, so be it.