Local elections: UKIP suffers big losses across England

>In Lincolnshire, where UKIP leader Paul Nuttall is standing in the general election in Boston and Skegness, the party went from being the official opposition to having no seats at all as the Tories gained 23 seats.

>It also lost eight seats in Hampshire, two seats on the Isle of Wight and eight in East Sussex. However, senior UKIP figures sought to put a brave face on the performance.

>The "people's army" has deserted its leaders. After years building its strength in local government, UKIP seems to be collapsing as its former supporters abandon the party for the Conservatives.

>UKIP lost all its seats in Hampshire, Essex and Lincolnshire. The east coast county was once a purple bastion and is where Paul Nuttall will try and win a parliamentary seat. The party's failure there encapsulates its demise.

>Will UKIP do better at the general election? Possibly. But these results mirror its slide in recent opinion polls. It now has no MPs, and when Britain leaves the EU it will lose all its MEPs too. The future for UKIP looks bleak.

>And of course it's easy to see why. The party's core purpose was to campaign for Britain to leave the EU. Now Brexit is happening, UKIP voters are walking away.

>But what is significant is how they are turning to the Tories in huge numbers.

>For more than a decade the eurosceptic right of British politics has been fractured. David Cameron saw UKIP eating into the Tory vote and promised an EU referendum to try to halt the march.

>Labour too lost many of its traditional working-class supporters to UKIP. But by embracing Brexit and squaring up to Brussels, it's Theresa May's Conservative Party reaping the reward.

>Mr Nuttall said it had been a "difficult night" but there was little the party could have done in the face of a "big national swing" to the Conservatives.

>"Mrs May's public dispute with the EU in recent days - which led to her speaking about standing up to Brussels in an eve-of-poll statement in Downing Street - was particularly fortuitously timed for the Conservatives," he said.

>"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.

>"We are the victims of our own success and now we pick ourselves up and go on to further success in the future."

>UKIP's local government spokesman Peter Reeve maintained the party was still "leading the national agenda".

>He told the BBC: "We are never happy when we are not winning seats - and today hasn't been good on that front.

>"The reality is... the Conservative Party have painted themselves in UKIP colours, flying a UKIP flag, and the danger is they won't fulfil the promises and pledges they have now made.

>"UKIP will have a resurgence when Theresa May's promises start to unravel."
Conservative defence secretary Michael Fallon said his party appeared to be picking up votes from UKIP and other parties, but he cautioned that this did not mean this would be case on 8 June.