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The party leader finished a measly third in Boston and Skegness, where 75.6 per cent of constituents voted to leave the European Union, with the Conservatives holding the seat. Mr Nuttall secured just 7.71 per cent of the vote in the Brexit heartland – even worse than the 26.08 per cent from the party’s bid for the seat in 2015.

GETTY Mr Nuttall failed to win Boston and Skegness and led Ukip to a huge drop in vote share

It is Mr Nuttall’s second failure to secure a Commons seat this year after a dismal attempt to win the Stoke Central by-election in February. Ukip’s vote is down this election to 1.9 per cent – almost 11 per cent lower than in 2015, when Nigel Farage led the party to secure 12.6 per cent of the total vote but just a single MP. And now the party, which previously based its campaign on leaving the European Union, has seen its voters almost completely flock to either the Conservatives or – less expectedly – the Labour Party.

GETTY Nigel Farage said Ukip could make a comeback if a hung parliament is the outcome of the election

General Election 2017: the most shocking election in recent history Thu, June 8, 2017 No-one saw it coming. A resurgent Labour has delivered a humiliating blow to Theresa May. While still the Prime Minister, the Conservative majority has been decimated Play slideshow Reuters/PA/Getty/EPA 1 of 39 How has the election panned out for the four main parties?

Former leader Mr Farage said this evening that Ukip might be able to mount a resurgence in the event of, as the final exit poll has predicted, a hung parliament. He told LBC Radio: If the result of this tonight is that we finish up without a government with a clear majority pushing for Brexit, then a huge gap opens in the political landscape for Ukip once again.” But he said officials in Brussels “will have looked at the exit polls and be cheering very loudly because right now, if we believe the exit polls, Brexit is under a bit of threat.”

Mr Farage, however, was relatively complimentary towards Jeremy Corbyn’s performance in the election campaign in comparison with Theresa May. He told the BBC: “When Corbyn said they would end free movement, when he said that under Labour we would leave, I think he kind of boxed off Brexit as an issue for Ukip voters, many of whom did not see the party as being relevant in this campaign." However, the former Ukip leader warned: “If tomorrow we finished up with Jeremy Corbyn forming a coalition with the Liberal Democrats and the SNP, I would assume the price would be a second referendum two years down the road and I think in that case there would be a lot of space for Ukip.”

GETTY Labour has managed to take a considerable amount of Ukip's vote share