What's most interesting is that the "joke" candidate was put forth by the other parties, because they know they cannot win a fair election against Farage in his district. They're hoping for another "Boaty McBoatface" outcome here, but their strategy will fail.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boaty_McBoatface

Farage resigned to try to avoid the parliamentary standards committee over his undeclared millions in income. He framed it as letting the voters decide. That's not how it works - its a pure PR move. If he wins again he still gets investigated.

The other parties declined to stand candidates as they did not want to play Farage's silly game - they want to investigate him.

what are you on? Farage resigned their seat because they got 5 million they didn't declare and wished to avoid parliamentary procedure, instead saying "the voters should decide", and the other parties knew it was only a PR stunt so declined to take place, because there will be a by-election (yet another £200,000) that will happen anyway once the undeclared gift gets him booted.