The Conservative Party has been trounced in Britain's local elections, losing a total of 970 councillors across the country at the time of going to publication. The UK Independence Party (UKIP) also failed to capitalize in the elections, losing 87 seats.
The winners, however, were not the official opposition but rather the almost-forgotten Liberal Democrat Party and the hard-left Greens.
Labour itself lost 109 seats, whereas the Lib Dems gained 542 with the Greens up by 139. Other parties, including independents, picked up a massive 485 seats.
One UK Independence Party senior source described their poor performance as "Leave apathy" – implying that Brexiteers simply did not vote, or wanted to cast protest votes against the Conservative Party.
The results mean the party of government – the Tories – lose control over slew of local authorities. Many of the party's losses stemming from their more traditional heartlands of the South East, East, and South West.
The elections will no doubt be portrayed by the political establishment as a ringing endorsement of anti-Brexit parties, though The Brexit Party – Nigel Farage's new outfit – did not stand candidates this week, opting to wait instead until the European Parliamentary elections at the end of the month.
One UK Independence Party senior source described their poor performance as "Leave apathy" – implying that Brexiteers simply did not vote, or wanted to cast protest votes against the Conservative Party.
Even so, one would have expected UKIP to gain, lending further credibility to the argument expressed recently that "the party is over".
UKIP Leader Gerard Batten gave a somewhat dejected two-part statement: "So far about 45% of wards have declared a result. It's too early to give an exact analysis of UKIP's performance, however, we have had some spectacular successes in places like Sunderland, and Derby, where Alan Graves achieved 56.4% of the vote.
"Why don't you resign? The national convention doesn't want you, we don't want you!"
"We have also lost a few seats and the mainstream media is counting seats as lost by us where we didn't fight this time around. When all the results are in we will give a full account of how we did and one important figure will be our average percentage across the over 1,400 seats in which we stood."
Meanwhile, Tory leader Theresa May was told in no uncertain terms that she was not wanted by her own party.
At a speech to the Welsh Conservatives, Mrs. May was heckled by Conservative Party activist Stuart Davies, who shouted "Why don't you resign? The national convention doesn't want you, we don't want you!"
The country goes to the polls again on May 23rd, with Farage's Brexit Party expected to return the most number of Members of the European Parliament to Brussels.
