In the early hours of last Friday morning, a video was posted. It showed Nigel Farage among his team of volunteers, before the votes had been counted, celebrating his victory and saying that he was not going to humiliate himself by sharing a platform at the count next to “nobodies”. He was referring to the 33 other candidates who had taken part in what was effectively an unnecessary election, one Farage himself had instigated just a few weeks earlier to send one message: that the people of Clacton were backing him, despite parliamentary investigations into his receipt of an undeclared £5m donation.
The election is over, but it’s worth thinking about Clacton and those candidates, of whom I was one. I migrated to Britain from Iran 27 years ago, and have not been back there for 24 years because my Christian faith and my political activities put me at risk of persecution. Iran’s Islamic regime has massacred thousands of innocent people who want the democracy and freedom we have in Britain and it continues to execute protesters.
Perhaps that’s why I felt so passionately about defending our democratic system in Britain from being abused. Some in the British-Iranian community had high respect for Farage as it was not long ago that he met and embraced protesters outside the Iranian embassy in London after the Islamic regime’s massacres. Many of them were puzzled as to why I was standing against him and why I had left the Conservatives, for whom I had previously stood as a candidate in local elections, to do so.
I remember Reform supporters in Surrey asking me: if Farage could not save the country, who could? My decision to stand was not a personal vendetta however. Having closely followed Reform’s campaigns on immigration, borders and security, I had seen the deep divides they created in communities.
Throughout the election, Farage did his best to keep his distance from the other candidates. He refused to engage with us, to attend hustings and ultimately to share a platform on the night of the count. The campaign itself was revealing, as I met voters who had become disillusioned with Farage.
Some were frustrated that he had never visited them or replied to their constituency emails. Others were concerned about his undeclared multimillion pound funds and connections with crypto billionaires. Some felt he had done almost nothing for Clacton, or that he had put Clacton “on the map for the wrong reasons”.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
