We published a video yesterday suggesting that Nigel Farage had run out of road, and it was good to see that he agreed by resigning as the MP for Clacton-on-Sea yesterday afternoon.

However, as I noted in last night's extra video referring to this issue, he is, of course, standing again to be the MP for the same constituency, asking people in this very deprived constituency to witness a waste of public money for the sake of satisfying his vanity.

The essential problem for Farage is that, if he is re-elected (although, given Reform's recent performance in by-elections, and the fact that people thoroughly dislike by-elections of this sort, there is no guarantee that will be the case, even if his only opponent is Count Binface), the parliamentary inquiry about which he is so aggrieved will continue. Apparently, that is what parliamentary rules require, but Farage, rather like Trump, appears to think he is above the law.

The fact is that everything he said in his pre-recorded announcement of his resignation, which was played late on Twitter, is attributable to his sense of exceptionalism, as is almost all of his politics.

He believes in English exceptionalism. That is why he so obviously treats Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland with contempt.

He believes in our right to colonial exceptionalism, which is why he hates everyone from outside England.

He believes in white exceptionalism, which is the foundation of his politics of hate.

He believes in neoliberal exceptionalism, which is why he hates the state that he is simultaneously desperate to control to advance his personal self-interest, just as he sees Trump has done.

And he believes in his own exceptionalism, which is why he claims he is the most abused MP this century, when two have been murdered, and another stabbed, and he has had an ice-cream thrown at him.

This is why he believes he can play games with politics, his political parties, his supporters, and the electorate. And it is this exceptionalism that explains why he has called this by-election.

Now the question is for others to decide how they respond.

My hope is no one stands against him, and we already know that all the major political parties, plus Restore, have decided not to do so. I applaud them for that.

But that deliberate undermining of any mandate that Farage might claim for himself is not the end of this matter. The fact that there will be a by-election just after Andy Burnham becomes Prime Minister does represent a challenge to him. At the very least, he needs to point out why Farage is wrong, why Parliament must have its chance to decide his fate, and why his politics will fail. Labour does not need to stand to do this. But Burnham needs to make his own manifesto clear, and so far he has not done so. Farage did not resign for that reason, but unless Burnham rises to the moment, Labour will have missed an opportunity.

That said, they, like the other major parties, will have drawn a line in the sand between their toxic neoliberalism and the fascism that Farage and Restore represent by nit standing. They, I hope, have made clear that there is a line they will not cross. They will not do hate. They will not do racism. They will not undermine the state. They will not undermine the rule of law. They will not threaten democracy. But that does not mean that they have any answers for the people of Clacton, and I suspect those people know that. It is not just Farage's politics that are failing: theirs are too.

This election might be the last-ditch, desperate act of a politician who realises he has nowhere else left to go, who has peaked too soon, and who is very unlikely ever to be Prime Minister unless he copies the Trump rulebook, which is about creating authoritarian, fascist rule. It does, however, give other parties the chance to say something more important, which is precisely what they will do for places like Clacton. Without modern monetary theory, a politics of care, and an economics of hope, I am not sure any of them have an answer. And Farage might still expose that fact, in amongst the wreckage of his own failed career.

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