Wiltshire MP slams Count Binface and the politicians supporting him
Danny Kruger says politics is becoming joke
Wiltshire’s sole Reform UK MP has hit out at Count Binface – the self-styled intergalactic space warrior who is challenging Nigel Farage in the recently vacated parliamentary seat of Clacton.
East Wiltshire MP Danny Kruger, who defected from the Conservative Party to Reform UK in September, slammed the satirical candidate and the “mainstream” political parties that are refusing to stand against his party leader and, increasingly, voicing their public support for Count Binface.
At Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday – the last for outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer – Mr Kruger said: “Politics is not a joke.
“It is wrong that the mainstream parties are backing a comedian wearing a dustbin as their joint candidate in Clacton.”
He told the House of Commons: “Every other party in this house, except Reform, has put forward as their candidate in the Clacton by-election a comedian with a dustbin on his head.
“It might be that a man with his head full of rubbish is a fitting representative of the mainstream parties in this House.
“But I think the Prime Minister did endorse the bin man. Could he clarify that?
“If he won’t put up a Labour candidate in Clacton, who does he actually want to win?”
The PM responded: “I know that Reform believes in recycling politicians.
“But I wonder if he really thought he’d be spending his summer arguing with a bin.
“Was what it had in mind when he defected to the benches up there?”
The forthcoming Clacton by‑election was triggered by Nigel Farage resigning amid scrutiny over undeclared financial support and donations, in order to recontest it on a “people versus the establishment” platform.
Mr Farage’s gambit assumed Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would pile in, letting him frame a win as triumph over the entire political class.
Instead, his rivals described it as a stunt, and declined to field candidates. Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Mr Farage was having a “hissy-fit” while chancellor Rachel Reeves said that if Nigel Farage “wants to spend the summer arguing with a bin, I won’t stop him.”
Now the battle is being framed as Farage versus Count Binface, although constituents will also have the chance to vote for former actor Laurence Fox of the “anti-woke” Reclaim Party, and Piers Corbyn, the anti-net zero, anti-vaccine brother of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Rob Pownall, the anti-hunting and shooting campaigner who stood against Andy Burnham in the Makerfield by-election dressed as a fox, declared his candidacy before dropping out, calling the contest “farcical”.