Hannah Spencer has accused Nigel Farage of treating politics “like a complete joke”, saying her elderly greyhound has carried out more community work than the Reform UK leader has managed in Clacton.
The Green MP for Gorton & Denton spoke to JOE Media’s Ava Santina on College Green following Prime Minister’s Questions, where she was asked about Farage’s decision to resign as Clacton’s MP and immediately seek re-election.
Farage has presented the by-election as an opportunity for local voters to judge him amid scrutiny over a £5m gift from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne. Spencer saw it differently. She said Farage was trying to turn a serious parliamentary investigation into a political spectacle, while the people who elected him were left wondering what they had received in return.
“He’s just treating it like a complete joke, and he’s treating people like a joke,” she said.
‘He’s exposed as exactly who he said he wasn’t’
Asked for her immediate reaction to Farage calling a by-election on himself, Spencer said the decision had left her feeling angry and frustrated. She also expressed sympathy for people in Clacton who backed Farage in the belief that he would offer something different from the politicians they had grown tired of.
“People wanted change, and he promised them that he was going to come here and shake things up,” she said.
Instead, Spencer argued that Farage had shown himself to be part of the same political establishment he has spent years attacking. She described the decision to resign and stand again as an attempt to escape the normal process of parliamentary accountability. “There’ll be people undoubtedly watching this who know they might have been through something similar at work and have had a process of investigation,” she said. “You don’t get to play the system the way that he has done here.”
Farage has insisted the by-election gives Clacton voters the chance to decide whether they still trust him. Critics have pointed out that an election result cannot determine whether parliamentary rules were broken, and that any standards investigation is concerned with conduct rather than popularity.
Spencer said the episode exposed what she regarded as a two-tier political system, where powerful people believe they can avoid consequences that would apply to everyone else.
Why she laughed on Newsnight
Spencer was also asked about her appearance on BBC Newsnight, where she laughed after Reform politician Laila Cunningham described Farage as “a very honest man”. The reaction quickly circulated online because Spencer appeared unable to conceal her disbelief.
“I actually tried,” she told JOE. “I don’t laugh, it just came out. I couldn’t cover it.” She said the description felt absurd against the backdrop of the £5m gift row and Farage’s decision to force another election. “The whole thing is just absolutely laughable,” she said.
Her amusement, however, was mixed with anger at the effect Farage’s politics was having on people who had voted for him. Spencer said she had visited Clacton before Christmas while looking into gambling and Farage’s involvement in the industry. During that visit, she said she encountered people struggling to afford rent, mortgages and energy bills.
Those voters had been promised a representative who would bring their concerns into Parliament. Instead, she argued, Farage had spent long periods away from both Westminster and his constituency. “He’s very rarely here,” Spencer said. “There were months on end that he didn’t vote at all. He’s very rarely in the constituency.”
‘My elderly dog has done more community work’
Spencer compared Farage’s parliamentary and constituency record with her own first months as an MP. She said she had tried to remain available to residents despite facing serious security concerns, attending local meetings and holding surgeries across Gorton & Denton.
“I’m either here or I’m in the constituency, meeting all the incredible community groups or campaigners or residents who’ve got in touch,” she said. She told voters on election night that she would work for everyone in the constituency, regardless of whether they had supported her.
Spencer said that after comparing her first four months in Parliament with Farage’s time representing Clacton, she had “no doubt” she had done more work. Then came the line that captured the interview.
“One of my greyhounds, Judy, who often comes to stuff in the constituency, we worked out, I think she’s done more in the constituency than Nigel Farage,” Spencer said. “My elderly dog has done more community work.”
Judy had even attended a school assembly the previous week, where she had apparently been involved in an attempt to build a snowman. Spencer’s point was not simply that Farage’s attendance record was poor. It was that someone who promised to transform politics had, in her view, failed at the most basic part of being an MP: turning up for the people who elected him.
Spencer backs security for politicians, including Farage
The interview also turned to security, an issue Reform politicians have spoken about extensively following the death of Ann Widdecombe. Farage has complained that he was not given adequate state protection despite the threats he faces. Reports have since said he rejected a taxpayer-funded package that included a bodyguard, car and trained driver because he considered it insufficient.
Spencer said there were real gaps in the system protecting MPs. She noted that two MPs, Jo Cox and Sir David Amess, had been murdered within a decade and said the public often assumed politicians received more protection than was actually available. She was clear that no politician should face threats to their life because of their views. “Whichever politician it is, I will always defend people being able to say what they think, how they feel, and not have their life threatened,” she said.
But she rejected Farage’s attempt to present himself as uniquely persecuted. Spencer argued that he had contributed to making British politics more hostile through rhetoric she described as divisive. “For him to claim that he’s the only one, that he’s persecuted or a victim of everything, and not acknowledge that he ultimately has, I think, been part of the way that politics has become so toxic and so hateful and so divisive,” she said.
‘The man of the people’ claim
Asked whether she considered Farage a toxic political figure, Spencer said she believed he used other people’s struggles to advance his own career. She pointed to his relationships with wealthy backers and the £5m Harborne gift, arguing that Farage spent more time among millionaires and billionaires than among the working people he claims to represent.
Spencer also contrasted Farage’s earnings outside Parliament with policies associated with Reform. She referred to his lucrative work promoting gold and his various media roles, while accusing him of supporting policies that would weaken protections for people on ordinary wages. “The idea that he pushes that he’s a man of the people, I think, is an absolute joke,” she said.
Her argument was that Farage had used anti-establishment language while benefiting from many of the privileges he claimed to oppose. That criticism has become increasingly common during the Clacton by-election. Farage has framed the contest as a fight between himself and a hostile establishment. His opponents have responded by pointing to his City career, private education and wealthy donors.
Why the Greens are not standing in Clacton
Spencer defended the Green Party’s decision not to field a candidate in the Clacton by-election. The decision was made by the local party, and she said she would support the outcome of a democratic process led by those most directly affected. Local activists, she said, regarded the contest as a Farage publicity stunt and did not want to lend it legitimacy.
The withdrawal of the Greens, Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats has left Farage facing Count Binface as his most prominent opponent. Asked whether that made a mockery of democracy, Spencer said the blame rested with Farage. “He’s made a mockery of it,” she said. “He has resigned and then stood again. That’s not how this should work.”
She argued that Farage should have remained in place and allowed the investigation into his financial affairs to run its course. Instead, she said, he had tried to turn the process into a show. “He’s underestimated the general mood,” Spencer said. “We’re not here to play his games.”
How often has Spencer seen Farage in Parliament?
Asked how often she had encountered Farage in the Commons, Spencer’s answer was blunt. “Honestly, two or three times,” she said. She said it had taken a long time after her election before she saw him in Parliament at all. “How can he be here when he’s got so many other things?” she asked, before taking another swipe at his wealthy supporters: “So many other donors that he needs to go and answer to.”
Farage’s supporters are likely to dismiss the criticism as partisan. He has argued that the work of an MP cannot be judged only through voting records or appearances in the chamber, and that he maintains an active public profile outside Westminster.
But Spencer’s attack will resonate because it returns the argument to Farage’s promise to Clacton. He told voters he would represent a forgotten community and challenge an unresponsive political class. Now, as he asks them to vote for him again, one of his parliamentary opponents says her elderly greyhound has been more visible in local public life.
For a politician who has built his career on ridicule, that is not an easy line to shake off.
One response to ““My elderly dog has done more community work”: Hannah Spencer tears into Nigel Farage”
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HEAR, HEAR, Hannah. Well said !!!!
And for the ReformUK Party Limited Company Supporters just this,
TRUTH HURTS, doesn’t it. 😎
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