Is Reform UK’s horror story about its traitor taking bungs from a Russian spy cutting through in its citadel, Clacton-on-Sea? Is Nigel Farage answering questions about his long-term friendship with Nathan Gill, who has pleaded guilty to accepting eight bribes from Russian spy Oleh Voloshyn? Do the voters in one of Britain’s poorest constituencies give a toss?
Clacton’s interest – or the lack of it – in Reform’s near-silence on its traitor and the Russian spy tells us something important about the new far-right politics that is gripping so many of our people, and the increasing likelihood that our next government will warm the cockles of Vladimir Putin’s cold heart.
I start by trying to track down the Leader of Reform UK in his lair – last year, he was elected Reform’s MP for Clacton. It is not easy. Not at all. I’m told that Farage often takes a revitalising dip in the invigorating November North Sea so I set off to the jewel of the Essex Riviera with my cozzie.
I am badly misinformed.
John braves the bracing North Sea. There was no sign of Clacton’s MP anywhere.
Of the Leader, there is no sign – not in the sea, on the beach, on the pier or even under the seaweed-clagged piles supporting it.
On land, I have no luck either: he isn’t in the chicken shops or the sad, empty car park or the amusement arcades or Poundland. When I was in Caerphilly for the byelection to the Welsh Senedd, I tried to pop into the Reform UK party office, only for the door to be closed in my face. No such luck in Clackers, as we find it impossible to discover where the door to Reform’s party HQ is, let alone where Farage might be.
This is a common complaint: that since the general election he is rarely to be seen in the constituency and when he does come, it’s for a quick photo-op for the cameras in a pub. It’s possible that, since being elected, the town’s new MP may have spent more nights in the United States than he has in Clacton.
That is striking because there is a lot of work to be done here. You will die 18 years younger in Clacton than in Saffron Walden in “posh Essex”, 50 miles inland. Only 15% of Clacton folk have a degree compared with England’s average of just shy of one in three. One in four in Clackers have no qualifications whatsoever, the second-highest rate in England. One in five have never had a job.
Thinking hypothetically, if you were a grifter out to con people that “the other” were your true enemy making your life poor and miserable, then Clacton would be a great place to base yourself.
He isn’t in the chicken shops or the sad, empty car park or the amusement arcades or Poundland. We can’t even find Reform’s HQ, let alone Farage
And thinking back to Farage’s public pronouncements, last summer he said he feared being attacked if he held one-to-one surgeries in Clacton. But then he did a reverse ferret and said he’d get on with them. And he maintains he’s in Clacton “a couple of days a week”.
Perhaps, when he visits, he dons a Harry Potter cloak of invisibility. Regardless of Farage's wizardry, do ordinary people here understand that our British democracy is under attack from the Russians? Or are they in the dark?
I hit the streets to do some vox pops, asking: “Is it all right for British politicians to accept bribes from a Russian spy?”
“No,” says one.
“What about if it's a bribe from a Russian spy?”
“Not from anybody.”
And a second says: “No. Are you a Russian spy?”
Very amusing. I deny it.
“Nigel Farage's pal Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty when he was a member of the European parliament to accepting money from a Russian spy and he's being sentenced later this month. Does that worry you at all?”
“It does because we just voted Reform last time, we are voting Reform next time.”
Very quickly, dislike with every side of the public square kicks in: “People are so disenchanted with politics in general. At the moment, Farage looks like the best amongst everybody.”
What about bribes from Russian spies?
“Difficult one, difficult one, mate. I've lost interest in British politics. Obviously I listen to it but what's the point? Too many goody-goodies. We need to go for it, upset everyone for six months, but let's get this country back to where it was.”
The scandal of Traitor Gill gets little traction here. To recap, Gill – Reform’s former leader in Wales and a longtime associate of the champion of Brexit – will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Friday, and, almost certainly, will be going to jail. Farage now denounces his old ally as “a bad apple”.
But once upon a time, they were close. Martin Shipton is the associate editor of the Welsh news site Nation.Cymru. Shipton told me that Gill was “one of the closest lieutenants that Farage had and one of the few MEPs that Farage actually trusted in the European parliament. Nathan Gill was characterised as a bit of a puppy dog and he was very much a sycophant to Nigel Farage … He wasn’t particularly bright but he could always be relied upon.” Gill was Rodney to Farage’s Del Boy, Robin to his Batman.
Shipton is not the only commentator who believes that Gill – a bishop in the Church of Latter-Day Saints, also known as the Mormons, who lives in Anglesey in north Wales – would have been an unlikely primary target for the Russian deep state. That raises the fascinating question: who was it who introduced the traitor to the spy? Someone now in the Reform UK party? Was it even Farage himself?
We asked Reform exactly that and they have not replied.
Fancy that.
Why would they bother?
Voloshyn has said he never met Farage. But then how reliable is the word of a Russian spy?
John Sweeney is a journalist who has won awards for his work both in print and broadcasting including the Paul Foot Award in 2005. His most recent work includes the book Murder in the Gulag (2024) and the podcast Hunting Ghislaine