Former independent MP and former UKIP member Douglas Carswell | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images | Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images No point campaigning for UKIP, says party’s ex-MP UKIP’s vote collapsed dramatically in council elections Thursday.

LONDON — There is little point in UKIP fielding candidates in the general election, the party’s former MP Douglas Carswell said, after droves of supporters abandoned the party for the Conservatives in local elections.

UKIP’s vote collapsed dramatically in council elections Thursday. As of Friday morning, the party had lost every seat it was defending and had seen their representation wiped out on county councils including Hampshire, Essex, and the Isle of Wight.

The bulk of the anti-EU party’s support switched to Theresa May's Conservatives, whose government is seeking reelection on June 8 on a promise to take Britain out of the EU by March 2019.

Carswell, who left UKIP to serve as an independent MP in March, and is now standing down from parliament, told POLITICO that he would be “surprised” if UKIP fielded more than 100 candidates in the general election and said that party activists were merely “going through the motions.”

“What we’re now seeing is a mass movement of the 3.8 million UKIP voters at the last general election to the Theresa May column,” he said.

“It’s because we’ve achieved what we set out as a party to achieve — getting us out of the EU. We now have a government that’s doing that.”

He said that, far from regretting the demise of UKIP, the party’s supporters should “rejoice” that the government had adopted its agenda.

“I don’t want to sound unkind about some thoroughly decent people, but I can’t really see the point in fielding candidates or campaigning for UKIP,” he added.

“In fact I’d be surprised if UKIP manages to field more than about 100 candidates in the general election. Even where our activists are active they are just going through the motions really.

“Despite how bad the results were, nobody is asking if there is going to be a new leader. That shows you the extent to which there is no longer any vitality in the party.”

Party leader Paul Nuttall issued a statement Friday admitting it had been "a difficult night."

"If the price of Britain leaving the EU is a Tory advance after taking up this patriotic cause then it is a price UKIP is prepared to pay," said Nuttall, who is standing to be MP for the Lincolnshire seat of Boston and Skegness in the general election.

Carswell has suggested in the past that UKIP should “disband.”

Responding to Carswell’s remarks, a party spokesman said: “Mr. Carswell knew little of UKIP when he was masquerading as a UKIP MP, he knows even less now, it appears.

“He rode to success on the back of the hard work of ordinary members. Now, ungraciously, he wants to walk on them. It shows the measure of the man.”