Favourite seems to be that he'll call a by election. Not very clear on what that proves about the relevance of the allegations when he wants to be prime minister.
25 Apr 2023
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Confirmed. Don't suppose there's a world where Restore takes a chunk of his votes from the right (Rupert Lowe hates him) and a Burnham bounce sneaks Labour in? He only got 46% of the votes last time.
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Absolutely no chance he loses it in my opinion. But as you've said, I don't really see how this helps. I guess it allows him to stand and say 'the people don't care' which of course is absolutely bollocks.
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Presumably it's an attempt to establish a popularist rebuttal of any findings made by the parliamentary standards committee, given the level of investment some people have made in him as this countries baby trump.
The sadness is that too many people like the racism, over being run by russians.
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From The Receipts UK on social...
Farage resigns as Clacton MP, will fight the by-election he's just triggered.
Nigel Farage has resigned his seat rather than wait for the outcome of Daniel Greenberg's investigation into the £5m Harborne gift and the Cottrell staffing payments. The move triggers a by-election in Clacton, which he intends to contest.
This is the Owen Paterson move, not a genuine exit. Paterson resigned in 2021 the moment a 30 day suspension became likely, avoiding the vote and the recall petition that would have followed. Boris Johnson and Chris Pincher did the same. Resignation doesn't erase Greenberg's findings, but it does take suspension off the table, along with the recall petition and the prospect of losing the seat to a vote he doesn't control. What it buys Farage instead is a by-election fought entirely on his own terms and timing.
There's no legal barrier to what he's doing. A recalled or resigned MP is free to stand again in the resulting by-election, a mechanism used successfully by Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless when they defected from the Conservatives to UKIP in 2014, and unsuccessfully by Chris Davies in Brecon and Radnorshire in 2019 after his own recall. Nick Robinson flagged this exact scenario two hours before the statement, noting Farage would likely frame it as the establishment trying to remove him rather than as a man walking from a standards inquiry.
That framing is the real story here. A resignation timed to pre-empt a finding isn't a defence, it's an admission that the finding was coming. Clacton will now decide, within weeks, whether to return a man who resigned instead of facing a report into his own undeclared benefits, with the full weight of the Cottrell and Harborne material public for the first time. -
Does resigning nuke the enquiry then? Can't it just restart when/if he's re-elected?
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It will do, the investigation will be paused and then resume as soon as he's a sitting member of parliament again.
At which point he'll cry bloody murder about the will of the people yadda yadda
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He is a truly terrible human being.
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They should make the prick pay for the cost of the by-election rather than heap more cost on the tax payers.
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He's offering, like a modern day hero.
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People v the establishment? FFS, Farage IS the establishment.
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Perhaps the main parties will not stand, allowing an independent a free run on an anti corruption, anti racist ticket. Like Martin Bell when he took on the vile Neil Hamilton.
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Pie sums it up rather nicely here...
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Tories refusing to take part and said they would take part in a real by election once a recall has happened. Restore also refusing to take part in the ‘circus’.
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What's that you say? Three line whip by the russians to avoid splitting the fascist vote?
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Everybody else should boycott it apart from the Monster Raving Looney Party who might beat the real Monster Raving Looney.
