Farage has turned Clacton into a human zoo. Here’s the truth about what’s happening here

Clacton town centre is bustling, the beaches are packed and the pier’s raking in cash. We can credit the weather, but no doubt press coverage and Count Binface’s promotional videos have got us on radars too. The tourists look like they’re having a lovely time.

I moved to Clacton in 2022 and the first year was brilliant. It started with beach walks, cheap drinks and decorating a flat with panoramic sea views, and ended fat and happy from chips and ice-cream, a newborn baby in tow. Privileged with my health and stable income, albeit strained by a Truss-era mortgage, it was a place I loved, and was proud of.

Then Nigel Farage targeted us, and shit hit the fan.

With the general election in 2024, the world’s press descended, and then came thousands of social media comments that left me embarrassed, sad and fuming. You’re all thick, racist, gullible, hateful, toothless, jobless old fools, we were told. You deserve him. The worst of the snobbery was, sadly, on my lefty social media platform of choice, Bluesky.

Farage was elected with 46% of a 58% turnout. Fine, some people actually are gullible fools. But the other parties rolled over and failed to bother, treating us with contempt. I didn’t support, but I understood, why 46% voted as they did. I still loved Clacton, but it got harder to defend. Then things died down and we were forgotten again by everyone, including our new MP.

The gag about Farage not knowing where we are isn’t exactly true – he pops by for photo opportunities like a ceremonial mayor – but he seems less keen on surgeries, or representing Clacton in the Commons. Snaps for the local newspaper’s Facebook make fans think he’s doing great things for businesses and charities. It’s smoke and mirrors. Check Hansard for “Clacton” and see how many times he’s raised a Clacton issue in parliament (six times). Then do “Colchester” for Pam Cox and “Ipswich” for Jack Abbott. Compare and contrast.

We wanted him to actually be an MP. To notice the homeless people, freezing all winter in closed bank doorways, and now lining the coastal paths in tents. To notice how we’ve been priced off the railways – the commuter trains are empty. The worsening health, declining life expectancy. The low employment rates and lack of affordable homes. We don’t have an A&E. We don’t have maternity care after 5pm. It would have been nice too, if he’d spent more time doing what he said he would, and what Binface has achieved instead – promoting our towns and villages’ positives. There are many, I promise.

Nobody wanted a byelection. For the many people struggling here, there is little energy for another awful circus. Clacton didn’t need yet more focus on Farage, Farage, Farage, while the area’s entrenched and complex problems continue to be ignored by him and by the government.

This summer, the media presence has been even bigger than in 2024. Content creators and reporters continually vox pop outside Wetherspoons, cherrypicking quotes about how great Nigel is, how persecuted Nigel is. Well, we’re being swarmed with migrants, aren’t we? Getting put up in hotels while we struggle. It’s not like it used to be round here. The Turks, they’re taking over with the barber shops. Or, I don’t really do politics. They’re all the same as each other. A welcome few, it has been pleasing to see, have started to notice the slipperiness, the back of fag packet policies and his absence.

The “Migrants Out” leaflets were pushed into our homes, a turquoise Reform bus did the rounds and sad men with silly hats and placards yelled things in the town square. I’ve seen anti-racism campaigners told to F off, and can’t leave my flat without the smug face of a British Democratic party candidate leering down at me from giant poster boards. It has all felt surreal, hostile, dividing. Generally bad vibes.

The nasty, stereotyping, hurtful comments about us continue. With some exceptions – like Tim Burrows’ thoughtful portrait of Clacton – we’re a human zoo, and the butt of a joke. Farage used us as a pawn, and the media treats us as clickbait.

Yet in shops, the gym, pubs, on the beach, in the street, at the park, at nursery drop off, I’ve not overheard a single conversation about any of it, unless it was between a reporter and a local. Not one. The leaflets started getting left in the hallway, unread. Few of my family or neighbours plan to vote. We’re angry at him, but we are also bored, and exhausted.

My prediction: It’ll be a low turnout, Farage way ahead, with Binface second but the only real winner. I’ll read about how we wasted the chance for a hilarious outcome, you idiots. You gullible, racist fools. You deserve him. And so on. Then it’ll die down again, briefly, and we can get back to what’s left of the summer, the lives Farage has no clue about or interest in and keep talking about the things that really matter in Clacton: litter, landlords, potholes, parking and whether there’ll be a second series of Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives.

• Sarah Elizabeth Cox is a historian, and communications manager for a science charity

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.