FORMER actor Laurence Fox has vowed to stand in the upcoming Clacton by-election, saying "someone is going to have to provide a voice on the 'right'".
The 48-year-old actor – who's most notable role was in the 2006 ITV crime-drama series Lewis – is now known for being an alt-right agitator, appearing at protests alongside Tommy Robinson, and for restoring the political Reclaim Party in 2020.
Now, Fox says he intends to stand in the Clacton by-election against Nigel Farage after the main Westminster parties announced they are boycotting the contest, with Farage’s highest-profile opponent likely to be the masked novelty candidate Count Binface.
Nominations have not yet opened for the by-election.
Eight hours after Farage announced he was resigning as an MP, Fox posted on Twitter/X: "Clacton is my back yard. I will be standing against Nigel Farage in the constituency."
He later added: "If I was a canvasser for any of the established political parties I would be pretty miffed that my party leaders had decided not to represent my voice just because they hate Nigel so much.
"What a state British politics is in when political parties don’t stand in elections. This is meant to be a democracy. People should have options when choosing who to vote for.
"I also sympathise with Nigel being harassed and abused by the media and the establishment. I lost an extremely lucrative career for speaking up and have been targeted by the police and others for opinions.
"There’s lots of things that Nigel won’t want to talk about in this election and someone is going to have to provide a voice on the 'right' (whatever that means) so in the absence of a mainstream political party going out there, someone else has to.
"Shambles country we live in."
Fox was fired from GB News in October 2023 after an on-air rant about journalist Ava Evans.
He could face trial in 2027 over allegations he shared a compromising photo of a TV personality on social media.
Upskirting, taking pictures of people under their clothes without their permission, became a specific criminal offence in 2019.
Elsewhere, Fox’s trial for allegedly encouraging people to damage Ulez cameras was delayed in February this year by two-and-a-half years, with a new trial date set for November 13 2028.
In his personal life, Fox married actor Billie Piper in 2007 before they divorced in 2016.
