Edinburgh pizza shop owner gets 11 votes in by-election against Nigel Farage and Count Binface
‘We will be on the ballot for the second by-election’ - Marc Wilkinson
An Edinburgh pizza shop owner who stood in the Clacton by-election and polled 11 votes has bemoaned the amount of attention given to Count Binface and accused Nigel Farage of manufacturing excuses for not attending the election count.
Marc Wilkinson said this week’s poll was the seventh election he has stood in since the 2024 general election.
The 59-year-old, who ran as an independent but described himself as the “current leader” of a new party called Essex People, said “we will be on the ballot for the second by-election”.
Mr Wilkinson said he was “shocked that all the attention has been on Count Binface”.
Count Binface was second place with 9,455 votes, behind winner Mr Farage with 22,239 votes, with the other 32 candidates losing their deposits.
Mr Wilkinson said “the other 32 candidates have had literally zero exposure”.
He said he had “had to hustle” to get interviews, managing to secure a mention in a national newspaper.
“I was shocked that all the main parties didn’t stand, I was shocked that Reform called the by-election, shocked that all the attention has been on Count Binface, most incredibly shocked by the extent to which the other candidates have been essentially ignored,” he said.
A crowd of photographers gathered around Count Binface as the results were read out by acting returning officer Ian Davidson.
“Binface was stood there for 10 minutes, loads of photographs and then he walks away,” said Mr Wilkinson.
“I was next to him and I made an announcement: ‘I can let you guys know about Essex People, the new party’, and everybody just ran off chasing photos of Binface’s a*se.”
Mr Farage did not attend the count amid contested claims he was told by police not to attend due to a “credible threat” against him.
Mr Wilkinson said: “It’s understandable why he wouldn’t want to come, so it’s understandable for him to manufacture excuses for not coming. We’re not going to be able to corroborate that apart from the fact that the police told the council that they hadn’t told any of the candidates that it wasn’t safe to come.”
He said he was not expecting Mr Farage to be absent from the event, had made an Essex People badge and was “going to try and see if I could stand next to him on the stage”.
Mr Wilkinson stood in this year’s Holyrood election for Edinburgh and East Lothian People, saying if elected he would vote in parliament as instructed by members of the party on an issue-by-issue basis.
Talking about his platform for the Clacton contest, he said: “What we’re doing is really important because we’re starting a revolution to remove the mechanism that allows corporate lobbyists and billionaires to have influence over politicians.”
He said the “bicycle chain we need to snap is the party whip”.
“The party whip is how all the large parties control how their MPs vote and force them to vote opposite to how they would otherwise vote were they free to use their intellect, their judgment and their conscience when voting on your behalf,” he said.
Mr Wilkinson said he wanted to crowdfund £100,000 to employ “15 to 20 people in Clacton to knock on every door” to introduce the Essex People party, and will be “targeting the team to collect two signatures minimum per hour over 5,000 hours”.