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U.S. News Politics Tech Fact Check Sports Global Iran War Russia-Ukraine Middle East China And Asia Live Blog Better Planet All World News Lifestyle Family & Parenting Entertainment Travel Pets Automotive Relationships Science Health Personal Finance Better Workplaces Readers Choice Opinion My Turn All Opinion Rankings Health Finance Products Education Workplaces Corporate Responsibility All Rankings Social Facebook Instagram Threads YouTube Reddit TikTok Twitter/X Extra Newsletters Newsmakers Unconventional Events Essays Podcasts Vantage Magazine CEO Circle Announcements Leadership Dev Pragad Subscribe Sign In U.S. News Politics Tech Fact Check Sports Global Iran War Russia-Ukraine Middle East China And Asia Live Blog Better Planet All World News Lifestyle Family & Parenting Entertainment Travel Pets Automotive Relationships Science Health Personal Finance Better Workplaces Readers Choice Opinion My Turn All Opinion Rankings Health Finance Products Education Workplaces Corporate Responsibility All Rankings Social Facebook Instagram Threads YouTube Reddit TikTok Twitter/X Extra Newsletters Newsmakers Unconventional Events Essays Podcasts Vantage Magazine CEO Circle Announcements Leadership Dev Pragad The Department of Defense last week released yet another tranche of UFO files. The documents make for interesting reading, but there’s nothing concrete enough for government officials to admit they have proof of alien life on Earth. They can’t have been looking very hard, though. Across the pond, there’s at least one known extraterrestrial life form—and he’s running against a darling of MAGA for a seat in UK Parliament. Count Binface, a self-identified intergalactic space warrior clad in armor fashioned out of a garbage can, is enjoying worldwide stardom ahead of a face-off with Nigel Farage—the leader of Britain’s hard-right Reform UK party—in a special election on August 13. Binface’s 20-point election manifesto, which includes such promises as "I’ll cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s," and "a windfall tax on cozy crime novels written (or "written") by celebrities," is mostly good fun and nothing more. But other points, like "I will not accept £5 million gifts from crypto billionaires" offer a peek behind the comedic curtain at what is a significant political scandal surrounding an ally of President Donald Trump. A Very Special Kind of Election Thursday’s election, held in the seaside town of Clacton, is a bit of a farce. It came about because Reform UK’s Farage, who in 2024 won the seat and finally became a Member of Parliament (MP) at the eighth time of asking, resigned his post last month amid mounting scrutiny of his finances, only to run for it again immediately. Farage says he resigned to give his constituents another chance to judge him again amid an investigation into whether he properly disclosed major financial support, including from a financier convicted of wire fraud in the U.S. He has sought to turn the investigation into his finances as the "establishment" conspiring to hold back a man of the people. Farage argues that his victory would equate to a victory of the common man over Britain's political elite, but the rest of the country's major parties dismissed the special election as a political stunt and are now boycotting it altogether. Enter Binface. Though he presents as an extraterrestrial being and leader of the Recyclons from planet Sigma IX, Count Binface’s real name is Jon Harvey. Far from the rocky plains of Sigma IX, Harvey is a husband and dad of two who studied Classics at the world-renowned University of Oxford and plied his trade as a writer for British sitcoms and comedy panel shows. Since 2017, first as the sci-fi character Lord Buckethead and from 2019 as Count Binface, Harvey has used his alien alter-ego to puncture the pomposity and absurdities of British politics. Because almost any adult citizen can run for office in the UK regardless of where they live, he has contested several elections against Prime Ministers and mayors, including the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, whom Trump has lambasted as a "stone cold loser" and a "horrible representative" of Britain. Given Binface’s previous opposition to Khan and Trump’s undeniable gift for the theatrical, you’d think the pair would be natural allies. Not so. Binface is now going toe-to-toe with Reform UK leader Farage and, nationally at least, the joke is landing. Although a clear majority of voters in Clacton are expected to back Farage, an IPSOS poll found a third of adults across Britain would prefer Binface to win, compared with just one in five for Farage. Britain’s MAGA Model Under the Microscope Farage’s road to this special election has been long and arduous. He spent decades trying to get into the UK Parliament, losing seven times before finally winning Clacton in 2024. Styling himself as a beer-drinking, pub-going man of the people willing to say what establishment politicians would not, he steadily built a gigantic public profile as a hard-right politician and pundit. Farage is one of the most MAGA-adjacent politicians in Europe. He first appeared onstage with Trump at a 2016 campaign rally in Mississippi, and went on to attend a string of high-profile events including the 2024 RNC, one of Trump’s Pennsylvania rallies, and even the election victory party at Mar-a-Lago. His Reform UK project increasingly resembles an attempt to transplant parts of the Trump movement to Britain. Farage has promised sweeping deportations and ruthless border protection measures, attacked net-zero climate policies and embraced Trump-style attacks on bureaucracy. Reform even campaigned on creating a "DOGE for every county," borrowing directly from Elon Musk’s U.S. government-cutting project. The approach was working. In May, Reform UK was the big winner in English local elections, making net gains of more than 1,200 council seats and hoovering up votes from traditional Labour and Conservative constituencies. Then came the controversy. Earlier this year, the UK Parliament’s standards commissioner began investigating a £5 million gift Farage received in 2024 from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based crypto billionaire who later became Reform’s biggest donor. Farage denies wrongdoing, and says the money was a personal gift used for security and was received just before he became an MP. The issue under investigation is whether parliamentary rules required him to declare the funds after he entered Parliament. Farage has separately faced questions over support from George Cottrell, a wealthy crypto entrepreneur and longtime associate who served prison time in the U.S. for wire fraud and reportedly provided staff, security and accommodation for Farage before the 2024 election. Reform says those resources were also personal gifts to Farage. The parliamentary investigation was suspended after Farage resigned, but can resume if he wins on Thursday. For Farage’s critics, the revelations expose Farage’s "pint with Nigel" outsider image as a complete fabrication. They argue the self-styled "man of the people" is just like all the other elite politicians, accepting financial backing from shady and extraordinarily wealthy patrons. His supporters counter that having rich friends makes Farage no less representative of voters frustrated with Britain’s political establishment. And then along comes a man with a trash can on his head, putting "I will not accept £5 million gifts from crypto billionaires" in his manifesto. Satire has a way of compressing a complicated scandal into one sentence. Binface Might Lose the Battle, But What About the War? There’s little danger of Farage losing the Clacton race to Binface. Polls conducted by Survation show he enjoys a healthy lead among people who actually live in the constituency; and let’s be honest, if he can’t beat a comedian who wears a trash can on his head, he shouldn’t be running at all. But Binface is still on track to scoop roughly 20 percent of the votes. By comparison, the intergalactic space warrior’s previous best result in a by-election is less than one percent. Binface’s campaign against Farage also seems to have encouraged Britain’s wider electorate to think again when it comes to Reform. National pollster YouGov had the party at 28 percent support in mid-May, 11 points clear of its nearest rival. Its latest poll puts Reform at 22 percent, behind Labour on 24 and only one point ahead of the Conservatives—the joint-lowest Reform showing in YouGov’s tracker since polling restarted in January 2025. Farage has spent a decade aligning himself personally and politically with Trump and the MAGA movement. After Trump’s 2024 victory, he openly talked about acting as a bridge between Britain and the new administration. Earlier this year, with Reform dominating polls and sweeping local elections, this looked like a real prospect. Now the path looks considerably harder. Farage can almost certainly beat Count Binface in an isolated battle. The real question is: will the controversies surrounding him, thrust into the public consciousness by the extraterrestrial, lead to Reform’s downfall? News Nigel Farage Immigration Elections For Members Maga British Elections British Politics Comedy More News Article The Aliens Are Here, and They’re Running for Office! Published Aug 12, 2026 at 09:55 AM EDT By David Averre 0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. The Department of Defense last week released yet another tranche of UFO files . The documents make for interesting reading, but there’s nothing concrete enough for government officials to admit they have proof of alien life on Earth. They can’t have been looking very hard, though. Across the pond, there’s at least one known extraterrestrial life form—and he’s running against a darling of MAGA for a seat in UK Parliament. Count Binface, a self-identified intergalactic space warrior clad in armor fashioned out of a garbage can, is enjoying worldwide stardom ahead of a face-off with Nigel Farage —the leader of Britain’s hard-right Reform UK party—in a special election on August 13. Read More on News Binface’s 20-point election manifesto, which includes such promises as "I’ll cut your taxes, and raise everyone else’s," and "a windfall tax on cozy crime novels written (or "written") by celebrities," is mostly good fun and nothing more. But other points, like "I will not accept £5 million gifts from crypto billionaires" offer a peek behind the comedic curtain at what is a significant political scandal surrounding an ally of President Donald Trump. A Very Special Kind of Election Thursday’s election, held in the seaside town of Clacton, is a bit of a farce. It came about because Reform UK’s Farage, who in 2024 won the seat and finally became a Member of Parliament (MP) at the eighth time of asking, resigned his post last month amid mounting scrutiny of his finances, only to run for it again immediately. Farage says he resigned to give his constituents another chance to judge him again amid an investigation into whether he properly disclosed major financial support, including from a financier convicted of wire fraud in the U.S. He has sought to turn the investigation into his finances as the "establishment" conspiring to hold back a man of the people. Farage argues that his victory would equate to a victory of the common man over Britain's political elite, but the rest of the country's major parties dismissed the special election as a political stunt and are now boycotting it altogether. Enter Binface. ... Though he presents as an extraterrestrial being and leader of the Recyclons from planet Sigma IX, Count Binface’s real name is Jon Harvey. Far from the rocky plains of Sigma IX, Harvey is a husband and dad of two who studied Classics at the world-renowned University of Oxford and plied his trade as a writer for British sitcoms and comedy panel shows. Since 2017, first as the sci-fi character Lord Buckethead and from 2019 as Count Binface, Harvey has used his alien alter-ego to puncture the pomposity and absurdities of British politics . Because almost any adult citizen can run for office in the UK regardless of where they live, he has contested several elections against Prime Ministers and mayors, including the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, whom Trump has lambasted as a "stone cold loser" and a "horrible representative" of Britain. Given Binface’s previous opposition to Khan and Trump’s undeniable gift for the theatrical, you’d think the pair would be natural allies. Not so. Binface is now going toe-to-toe with Reform UK leader Farage and, nationally at least, the joke is landing. Although a clear majority of voters in Clacton are expected to back Farage, an IPSOS poll found a third of adults across Britain would prefer Binface to win, compared with just one in five for Farage. Britain’s MAGA Model Under the Microscope Farage’s road to this special election has been long and arduous. He spent decades trying to get into the UK Parliament, losing seven times before finally winning Clacton in 2024. Styling himself as a beer-drinking, pub-going man of the people willing to say what establishment politicians would not, he steadily built a gigantic public profile as a hard-right politician and pundit. Farage is one of the most MAGA-adjacent politicians in Europe. He first appeared onstage with Trump at a 2016 campaign rally in Mississippi, and went on to attend a string of high-profile events including the 2024 RNC, one of Trump’s Pennsylvania rallies, and even the election victory party at Mar-a-Lago. His Reform UK project increasingly resembles an attempt to transplant parts of the Trump movement to Britain. Farage has promised sweeping deportations and ruthless border protection measures, attacked net-zero climate policies and embraced Trump-style attacks on bureaucracy. Reform even campaigned on creating a "DOGE for every county," borrowing directly from Elon Musk’s U.S. government-cutting project. The approach was working. In May, Reform UK was the big winner in English local elections, making net gains of more than 1,200 council seats and hoovering up votes from traditional Labour and Conservative constituencies. Then came the controversy. Related Story Thank You for Your Service…Now Get Out of America ... Earlier this year, the UK Parliament’s standards commissioner began investigating a £5 million gift Farage received in 2024 from Christopher Harborne, a Thailand-based crypto billionaire who later became Reform’s biggest donor. Farage denies wrongdoing, and says the money was a personal gift used for security and was received just before he became an MP. The issue under investigation is whether parliamentary rules required him to declare the funds after he entered Parliament. Farage has separately faced questions over support from George Cottrell, a wealthy crypto entrepreneur and longtime associate who served prison time in the U.S. for wire fraud and reportedly provided staff, security and accommodation for Farage before the 2024 election. Reform says those resources were also personal gifts to Farage. The parliamentary investigation was suspended after Farage resigned, but can resume if he wins on Thursday. For Farage’s critics, the revelations expose Farage’s "pint with Nigel" outsider image as a complete fabrication. They argue the self-styled "man of the people" is just like all the other elite politicians, accepting financial backing from shady and extraordinarily wealthy patrons. His supporters counter that having rich friends makes Farage no less representative of voters frustrated with Britain’s political establishment. And then along comes a man with a trash can on his head, putting "I will not accept £5 million gifts from crypto billionaires" in his manifesto. Satire has a way of compressing a complicated scandal into one sentence. ... Binface Might Lose the Battle, But What About the War? There’s little danger of Farage losing the Clacton race to Binface. Polls conducted by Survation show he enjoys a healthy lead among people who actually live in the constituency; and let’s be honest, if he can’t beat a comedian who wears a trash can on his head, he shouldn’t be running at all. But Binface is still on track to scoop roughly 20 percent of the votes. By comparison, the intergalactic space warrior’s previous best result in a by-election is less than one percent. Binface’s campaign against Farage also seems to have encouraged Britain’s wider electorate to think again when it comes to Reform. National pollster YouGov had the party at 28 percent support in mid-May, 11 points clear of its nearest rival. Its latest poll puts Reform at 22 percent, behind Labour on 24 and only one point ahead of the Conservatives—the joint-lowest Reform showing in YouGov’s tracker since polling restarted in January 2025. Farage has spent a decade aligning himself personally and politically with Trump and the MAGA movement. After Trump’s 2024 victory, he openly talked about acting as a bridge between Britain and the new administration. Earlier this year, with Reform dominating polls and sweeping local elections, this looked like a real prospect. Now the path looks considerably harder. Farage can almost certainly beat Count Binface in an isolated battle. The real question is: will the controversies surrounding him, thrust into the public consciousness by the extraterrestrial, lead to Reform’s downfall? 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