Long after the other counts in Britain’s General Election closed, James McMurdock has been elected in Essex after the race went down to the wire with three recounts ordered.
“He’s won! He’s an MP! Go on my son!” celebrated Nigel Farage on Friday afternoon after a surprise extra victory for his Reform Party was announced, when a hotly contested seat declared for James McMurdock.
McMurdock was elected for South Basildon and East Thurrock with 12,178 votes, only fractionally ahead of Labour with 12,080 votes. The Conservatives also performed well in this three-way marginal, and were only slightly behind on 10,159.
Responding to the victory, Mr Farage said McMurdock was a “paper candidate” — meaning a candidate standing as a pure formality with no expectation of winning and no money ploughed into a campaign — and that his whole team consisted of just him, and his mother and father. Nevertheless, the “former city boy”, meaning bank or financial services worker, emerged as “absolutely neck-and-neck with Labour” and the vote came down to the wire.
Local newspaper the Basildon Echo reports the council had originally been ready to declare the result by the early hours of this morning, but with a result with just a couple of hundred votes in it and allegations of serious counting errors by the Labour party, a total recount was ordered. Eventually, after each result was challenged, the whole election was recounted three times. On Friday afternoon as the final recount was underway, Mr Farage had said he was biting his nails over the tension of the result.