GETTY Ukip leader Nigel Farage said his party won the election by a 'country mile'

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How precisely that sums up what’s just happened all over this United Kingdom of ours. Those who stayed away from the ballot box, effectively ticking the “none of the above” box, levelled the playing field so much that Jeremy Corbyn’s predicted assassination has been delayed and there’s very little change in who’ll run our lives at local and regional level. Then there’s the surprising effect achieved by those who did vote, an X factor of almost seismic proportions in some areas. It was hard to take in on the night and even in the cold light of day two things are still shocking: Labour was wiped out in Scotland, where the Conservatives are the second biggest party after the SNP.

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And David Cameron’s deeply divided party managed to tread water in its heartland of the south of England despite being at each other’s throats over Europe and despite Labour’s vote share plummeting.

Every Ukip vote will be vital if they are to win the referendum

With an election there always has to be a winner. There’s no doubt it’s Ukip by “a country mile,” as a beaming Nigel Farage put it, and his party’s success could give a vital pointer to the outcome of the EU referendum in just over six weeks’ time. Ukip has proved its strong showing in last year’s general election was no flash in the pan and in key areas nationwide it has done even better, establishing itself as the main opponent to Labour in many northern cities. On the south coast Ukip gained seats from Labour in Havant which it hadn’t previously contested. In the Midlands it unshipped Derby’s Labour deputy mayor. In the North, Ukip grabbed two seats in Bolton.

GETTY Gareth Bennett became one of the first Ukip candidates to be elected to the Welsh Assembly

It did well in Basildon, Great Yarmouth and Thurrock, where it failed to gain control of the council by one vote in a ward that went to three recounts. Remarkably, in the two ­Westminster by-elections on Thursday – Sheffield Brightside and Ogmore in South Wales – Ukip catapulted itself into second place. It was in Wales that the party demonstrated how much it is a force to be reckoned with by winning seven seats in the assembly, a historic first. That success is bittersweet for Farage, though, as it was achieved because the seats were carved up by proportional representation, not first past the post as in England. This morning Farage will be reflecting that if seats in last year’s general election had been decided on the numbers of votes won, then Ukip’s four million would have given them about 80 seats in Westminster. Where would the Brexit campaign be now if that had happened? Miles ahead, in my view, and Cameron would be making retirement plans (come to think of it he probably still is).

GETTY Ukip continued its strong showing from last year's general election

What Ukip has achieved sends a powerful message to the Leave campaign – they desperately need to get Ukip on board as a strong and influential partner. Every Ukip vote will be vital if they are to win the referendum and the disaffected Tories heading the Leave campaign must not be tempted to see Ukip as poor relations who can be ignored. Those four million plus Ukip voters, whom Cameron stupidly once branded “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists” are actually sensible people with sensible views which ring bells with very many Conservative and Labour supporters. It’s un-British to dwell too much on the winners in life so let’s analyse what went wrong for the losers. These results are a disaster for Corbyn, a man so devoid of gumption that he somehow managed to declare his party’s mauling as a success because “we’ve hung on”. Granted, Corbyn is still there by his fingertips but for how much longer now that he’s become the first Labour leader in history to lose seats in his first year in charge? His henchmen John McDonnell and Tom Watson were smiling like lions anticipating the next meal of wildebeest yesterday as they gave unconvincing performances on TV about the need to back Corbyn to the hilt. The trouble for Corbyn is that the hilt will be part of the dagger they plunge in his back. Let’s put the scale of Corbyn’s leadership “success” in perspective. His party does not have one council seat in its historically natural heartland of Glasgow.

GETTY Ukip received four million votes in the 2016 general election