King's College London

But, for King’s College London student Nabil Nickels, it proved to be an opportunity too good to pass up and offered a fascinating insight into political and social culture in the UK.

Now, his documentary film – co-produced with friend Leonard Geymayer – is winning acclaim on YouTube for its candid and revealing take on one of the more surreal episodes in recent UK political history.

The by-election was held on 13 August following the resignation of then incumbent MP, Nigel Farage – leader of the Reform UK party. Unusually, however, almost all major rival parties declined to stand in the resulting poll, clearing the field for a head-to-head battle between Farage and Count Binface – the self-styled “intergalactic space warrior” who wears a dustbin on his head.

This was fertile ground for film-making.

“I was told about the Clacton election by a friend on mine of my course. I’d had a number of ideas for projects that I was considering but, when this came up, it seemed like the perfect place to start,” Nabil said.

Nabil, who is preparing to enter the final year of his BSc Politics programme, saw a lot of media coverage around the election was focussed on Clacton itself while its people were largely overlooked. He wanted his film to offer something different.

And so he and Leonard packed up their cameras and headed for the Essex coast.

“A lot of coverage we saw didn’t really interact with the people at all,” he said. “What we wanted was to show the area as it was but, at the same time, we wanted to show respect to people, to offer them a voice.

“People have a lot of internal biases which affect how they view an area or people but we really wanted to, as much as possible, avoid portraying people a certain way. We wanted to let them speak for themselves.”

And his film does just that, offering insights from local politicians and campaigners but also people who live, work and study in Clacton. The experience was eye-opening for Nabil, particularly on his visit to Jaywick, consistently ranked as one of the most deprived areas in the UK.

He said: “People in Jaywick were incredibly welcoming to us. It has this reputation as a run-down town but our experience on the ground was a lot different. People just want the best for their area.”

Nabil said his studies in politics had given him plenty of grounding in political theory and had helped to foster an interest in journalism, an area he didn’t initially plan on pursuing. However, a growing interest in sub-cultures and the structures that underpin them has left him with the desire to take on new projects.

“Journalism feels like the theoretical parts of my programme playing out in real life,” he said.

Clacton By-Election is available on YouTube now. Watch here: Clacton By-Election.