Meet 5 of Britain's Most Unusual Election Candidates
· Reason
"I thank my fellow candidates, in all their glory. Lord Buckethead, Elmo, and others. Forgive me if I don't identify them all," said then–Prime Minister Boris Johnson during his victory speech in 2019. On stage beside him stood a man with a bucket on his head and another dressed as the famed red puppet from Sesame Street.
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Since the 1960s, novelty candidates have been a common fixture of British politics. At the 2024 British general election, a record 4,515 candidates stood across the United Kingdom, an increase from 3,327 in 2019. Among them were space warriors, AI avatars, and furry TV characters.
These candidates are not running to be elected. They are running to remind voters just how absurd the theater of politics really is. Here are some of the five most iconic in recent memory.
- Count Binface
Count Binface, a 5,900-year-old "intergalactic space warrior" and leader of the Recyclons from the planet Sigma IX, has been standing in British elections since 2017. He was created by comedian and comedy writer Jonathan Harvey, who has worked on such BBC shows as Have I Got News for You and The Thick of It.
Count Binface has stood in two general elections, two by-elections, and two London mayoral elections. He ran against Boris Johnson in 2019, securing 69 votes, and stood to be London mayor in 2021, securing 24,775 first-place votes.
In June 2026, he stood against Andy Burnham at the Makerfield by-election. In this race, Binface promised to nationalize Adele, cap Wigan Kebabs at 2 pounds, and conscript people who use speakerphones on public transport.
Binface is now expected to run against Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage—who resigned last week amidst a parliamentary investigation into undeclared gifts he received while in office—in the Clacton by-election later this year.
"I've got a very good taxation policy. I pledge to cut your taxes and raise everybody else's," he said in a recent interview with The Times. Teasing Farage and his close relationship to U.S. President Donald Trump, Binface said he and the president—whom he called the "Mango Mussolini" and "the Peach Pinochet"—would probably not get along if he were elected. "If I went to America, I'd probably come face to face with ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. The irony is that in my get-up, ICE is exactly what I would most like."
The British public seems to be rooting for him. According to a national IPSOS poll, 33 percent of British adults said they would prefer Count Binface to win, compared with just 21 percent who backed Farage. Another 32 percent wanted neither candidate, while 13 percent said they did not know. The poll was conducted across Britain rather than among Clacton voters, who are largely Farage supporters. But nationally, the man wearing a silver bin on his head may be more popular than one of the country's best-known politicians.
- The Official Monster Raving Loony Party
Since 1983, candidates standing for the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP) have been a key staple of British elections. The party was founded by the British rock musician and eccentric David Sutch, better known as Screaming Lord Sutch.
The party has participated in every general election since its inception, with a seemingly inexhaustible parade of candidates in colorful dress with such names as The Flying Brick, Lady Lily the Pink, R.U. Seerius, Flash Gordon Approaching, Bananaman Owen, Lord Psychobilly Tractor, Baron Von Thunderclap, and Sir Grumpus L. Shorticus.
No OMRLP candidate has ever been elected to Parliament. According to the BBC, the party's current leader, Alan "Howling Laud" Hope, has said that if any candidate gets too many votes, they will be kicked out on the grounds that they have been "insufficiently loony."
Beneath the ridiculous names and colorful dress is a fairly pointed joke. The OMRLP takes promises made by politicians—more houses, more public services, lower taxes—and inflate them to highlight how unachievable they become when combined. The party's "manicfestos" frequently parody conventional political pledges. In 2024, the party promised to build 5 million homes, repair 5 million potholes, hire tens of thousands of teachers, police officers, and healthcare workers, and reduce taxes to 5 percent, before conceding: "yeah right…lol."
The party also promised to "get rid of VAT [Value Added Tax] as it adds no value" and force members of Parliament to "sit in stocks during their surgeries, while their constituents throw custard pies at them."
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party fielded 22 candidates in 2024, receiving a combined 5,814 votes.
- Elmo
Elmo, a furry red monster from the children's TV show Sesame Street, often contests British elections. His costume has made him one of Britain's most recognizable election-night fixtures. For years, he has stood against some of the country's most prominent politicians, including Theresa May in 2017, Boris Johnson in 2019, and Keir Starmer in 2024.
Bobby Smith, the man behind the costume, is a fathers' rights campaigner. He founded the Give Me Back Elmo Party after combining the first two letters of his daughters' names into "ElMo," which he set up to campaign for changing the family courts.
"I hope to build a record, even if I don't get any power," Smith said at the 2015 election. "No parent who is fit and willing should ever be denied their right to share equally in the lives of their own children."
- None Of The Above X
Not every novelty political candidate wears fancy dress. Terry Marsh, the undefeated former world light-welterweight champion, has taken a more literal approach. Before the 2010 general election, he legally changed his name to "None Of The Above X" so that voters in South Basildon and East Thurrock, a constituency in Essex, could select what appeared to be a formal rejection of every conventional candidate on the ballot.
"I don't take it for one moment that it would be a vote for me," he told BBC Essex. "I'm doing what I think the Electoral Commission should be doing and what should be on every ballot paper in any electoral process."
Marsh received 125 votes in 2010 and returned under the same name in 2015, when 253 people selected him.
- AI Steve
For the first time in British politics, in 2024, voters in Brighton Pavilion could vote for an AI lawmaker. "AI Steve" engages with voters in real time, asks for policy suggestions, and puts forward policy ideas. Topics vary, including immigration, bin collection, and LGBTQ rights.
The character was created by businessman Steve Endacott, whose frustration with "standard politics" spurred him to create AI Steve and stand as an independent. "We're launching a party, we're going to be recruiting more AI candidates across the country after this election, and we see this as the launch, building block for something big and something democratic," he told Reuters.
"AI and politicians have the one thing in common," Andy Clawson, a 42-year-old resident of Brighton who seemed hesitant to vote for AI Steve, told Reuters. "They can't be trusted."
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