Count Binface | |
---|---|
First appearance | 12 December 2018 [1] |
Portrayed by | Jonathan David Harvey (since 2018) |
In-universe information | |
Species | Recyclon |
Gender | Male |
Occupation | Leader of the Recyclons |
Origin | Sigma IX |
Count Binface is a satirical novelty candidate created by the British comedian Jonathan David Harvey [2] in 2018. [3] He stood as a candidate for Uxbridge and South Ruislip in the 2019 United Kingdom general election against the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, and again at the 2023 by-election that followed Johnson's resignation. He also stood in the London Mayoral elections in 2021 and 2024. [4] In the 2024 UK general election Binface stood against the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, in his Richmond and Northallerton constituency.
In earlier elections, Harvey stood as Lord Buckethead, [5] but was forced to change the character due to a copyright dispute with the American filmmaker Todd Durham, who created Lord Buckethead for his 1984 science fiction film Hyperspace . [6] [7] Since then Harvey has used the platform of Binface to promote electoral participation, with the slogan, "Make Your Vote Count".
Originally standing as an independent, since 2023 his affiliation has been given as Count Binface Party on ballot papers. [8]
Count Binface is an "independent space warrior" [9] in a black and grey uniform, with a long silver cape and a helmet shaped somewhat like a dustbin with a glowing strip where his eyes would be. He describes himself as the leader of the Recyclons from the planet Sigma IX, [10] and claims to be over 5,900 years old. [11]
Binface announced a series of satirical policies for the 2019 general election, including:
In 2019, another individual contested the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat as Lord Buckethead, representing the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, to which Binface said he "look[s] forward to both the hustings and to challenging [him] to take part in a receptacle-to-receptacle debate". [17]
Binface announced his intention to stand for the London Mayoral Election, which was originally scheduled for 2020, but was delayed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He announced a suite of 21 policies which "marries fiscal responsibility, social awareness, and not being an anti-vaccine nutjob", including:
Binface started a fundraiser to raise £10,000, the amount necessary to allow him to stand for Mayor of London. The excess money was donated to the charity Shelter to help combat homelessness. [18] He finished ninth with 24,775 votes in the mayoral election. [22]
In March 2024, Binface started another fundraiser to allow him to stand in the next London mayoral election, which was held on 2 May 2024. Any funds raised in excess of the necessary £10,000 would again be donated to charity. [23] After gaining the required amount, he announced his entry into the race [4] and released his manifesto, [24] which re-used many policies from previous years but added a few new ones.
The Binface manifesto called for the abolition of VAR [25] (presumably in football matches) and promised to force Thames Water managers to "take a dip in the Thames... see how they like it", in reference to the recent sewage discharge controversy; also to "build at least one affordable house", referring to the housing crisis in London. [26]
He finished in 11th place with 24,260 votes, notably, ahead of Britain First, despite the election's change to a First Past the Post voting system. [27] Incumbent mayor and election winner Sadiq Khan in a victory speech remarked about celebrating "becoming the first person in British political history to win successive victories over Count Binface". [28] He added that Binface finishing ahead of the far-right Britain First candidate was "another reason to love London". [29]
On 7 June 2024, Binface announced his intention to stand as a candidate in the 2024 United Kingdom general election, contesting the Richmond and Northallerton constituency against the then prime minister, Rishi Sunak. Binface said that he was "taking on the biggest fish of the lot" in the election and commented; "You shirked D-Day Rishi, you can't miss the B-Day", a reference to the controversy caused by Sunak's early departure from the ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings. [30] Amongst new policies announced in Binface's manifesto was a "space bridge" to solve the traffic problems caused by Northallerton's level crossings and reducing the price of 99 Flake ice creams to 99 pence. [31] He also proposed National Service for former prime ministers and inviting European nations to join the United Kingdom. [32] Additionally, he enlisted the mathematician and YouTuber Matt Parker to create charts for his free election pamphlet and to act as an election observer on behalf of the Count Binface Party. [33] Binface finished sixth of thirteen candidates with 308 votes, representing 0.6% of the all the votes cast. [34] He commented on Twitter that it was his best placing and highest ever vote count in a national election and declared that "BindependenceDay has come". [32]
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Boris Johnson | 25,351 | 52.6 | +1.8 | |
Labour | Ali Milani | 18,141 | 37.6 | −2.4 | |
Liberal Democrats | Joanne Humphreys | 3,026 | 6.3 | +2.3 | |
Green | Mark Keir | 1,090 | 2.3 | +0.4 | |
UKIP | Geoffrey Courtenay | 283 | 0.6 | −2.8 | |
Monster Raving Loony | Lord Buckethead | 125 | 0.3 | N/A | |
Independent | Count Binface | 69 | 0.1 | N/A | |
Independent | Alfie Utting | 44 | 0.1 | N/A | |
Independent | Yace Yogenstein | 23 | 0.0 | N/A | |
Independent | Norma Burke | 22 | 0.0 | N/A | |
Independent | Bobby Elmo Smith | 8 | 0.0 | N/A | |
Independent | William Tobin | 5 | 0.0 | N/A | |
Turnout | 48,174 | 68.5 | +1.7 |
Mayor of London election 6 May 2021 | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Party | Candidate | 1st round | 2nd round | 1st round votesTransfer votes, 2nd round | ||||
Total | Of round | Transfers | Total | Of round | ||||
Labour | Sadiq Khan | 1,013,721 | 40.0% | 192,313 | 1,206,034 | 55.2% | | |
Conservative | Shaun Bailey | 893,051 | 35.3% | 84,550 | 977,601 | 44.8% | | |
Green | Siân Berry | 197,976 | 7.8% | | ||||
Liberal Democrats | Luisa Porritt | 111,716 | 4.4% | | ||||
Independent | Niko Omilana | 49,628 | 2.0% | | ||||
Reclaim | Laurence Fox | 47,634 | 1.9% | | ||||
London Real | Brian Rose | 31,111 | 1.2% | | ||||
Rejoin EU | Richard Hewison | 28,012 | 1.1% | | ||||
Count Binface | Count Binface | 24,775 | 1.0% | | ||||
Women's Equality | Mandu Reid | 21,182 | 0.8% | | ||||
Let London Live | Piers Corbyn | 20,604 | 0.8% | | ||||
Animal Welfare | Vanessa Hudson | 16,826 | 0.7% | | ||||
UKIP | Peter Gammons | 14,393 | 0.6% | | ||||
Independent | Farah London | 11,869 | 0.5% | | ||||
Heritage | David Kurten | 11,025 | 0.4% | | ||||
Independent | Nims Obunge | 9,682 | 0.4% | | ||||
SDP | Steve Kelleher | 8,764 | 0.3% | | ||||
Renew | Kam Balayev | 7,774 | 0.3% | | ||||
Independent | Max Fosh | 6,309 | 0.2% | | ||||
Burning Pink | Valerie Brown | 5,305 | 0.2% | | ||||
Labour hold |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Steve Tuckwell | 13,965 | 45.2 | −7.4 | |
Labour | Danny Beales | 13,470 | 43.6 | +6.0 | |
Green | Sarah Green | 893 | 2.9 | +0.7 | |
Reclaim | Laurence Fox | 714 | 2.3 | New | |
Liberal Democrats | Blaise Baquiche | 526 | 1.7 | -4.6 | |
SDP | Steve Gardner | 248 | 0.8 | New | |
Independent | Kingsley Hamilton Anti-Ulez [lower-alpha 1] | 208 | 0.7 | New | |
Count Binface | Count Binface | 190 | 0.6 | +0.5 | |
Independent | No-Ulez Leo Phaure [lower-alpha 1] | 186 | 0.6 | New | |
Rejoin EU | Richard Hewison | 105 | 0.3 | New | |
Let London Live | Piers Corbyn | 101 | 0.3 | New | |
Independent | Cameron Bell | 91 | 0.3 | New | |
CPA | Enomfon Ntefon | 78 | 0.3 | New | |
UKIP | Rebecca Jane | 61 | 0.2 | -0.4 | |
Climate | Ed Gemmell | 49 | 0.2 | New | |
Monster Raving Loony | Howling Laud Hope | 32 | 0.1 | −0.2 | |
Independent | 77 Joseph [lower-alpha 2] | 8 | 0.0 | New | |
Majority | 495 | 1.6 | −13.4 | ||
Turnout | 31,000 | 46.23 | ![]() | ||
Registered electors | |||||
Conservative hold | Swing | −6.7 | |||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Labour | Sadiq Khan | 1,088,225 | 43.8 | ||
Conservative | Susan Hall | 812,397 | 32.7 | ||
Liberal Democrats | Rob Blackie | 145,184 | 5.8 | ||
Green | Zoë Garbett | 145,114 | 5.8 | ||
Reform UK | Howard Cox | 78,865 | 3.2 | ||
Independent | Natalie Campbell | 47,815 | 1.9 | ||
SDP | Amy Gallagher | 34,449 | 1.4 | ||
Animal Welfare | Femy Amin | 29,280 | 1.2 | ||
Independent | Andreas Michli | 26,121 | 1.1 | ||
Independent | Tarun Ghulati | 24,702 | 1.0 | ||
Count Binface | Count Binface | 24,260 | 1.0 | ||
Britain First | Nick Scanlon | 20,519 | 0.8 | ||
London Real | Brian Rose | 7,501 | 0.3 | ||
Majority | 275,828 | 11.1 | |||
Turnout | 2,484,432 | 40.50 | ![]() | ||
Registered electors | 6,162,428 | ||||
Labour hold | |||||
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Rishi Sunak | 23,059 | 47.5 | -15.8 | |
Labour | Tom Wilson | 10,874 | 22.4 | 6.0 | |
Reform UK | Lee Taylor | 7,142 | 14.7 | New | |
Liberal Democrats | Daniel Callaghan | 4,322 | 8.9 | -3.6 | |
Green | Kevin Foster | 2,058 | 4.2 | 0.4 | |
Count Binface Party | Count Binface | 308 | 0.6 | New | |
Independent | Brian Richmond | 222 | 0.5 | New | |
Independent | Niko Omilana | 160 | 0.3 | New | |
Yorkshire | Rio Goldhammer | 132 | 0.3 | -1.8 | |
Monster Raving Loony | Sir Archibald Stanton | 99 | 0.2 | New | |
Workers Party | Louise Dickens | 90 | 0.2 | New | |
Independent | Angie Campion | 33 | 0.1 | New | |
Independent | Jason Barnett | 27 | 0.1 | New | |
Majority | 12,185 | ||||
Turnout | 73,888 | 66 | -5.6 |
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