Excellent analysis. Better than the coverage on last night.

Speaking as the (hopefully rational) voice of the enemy, yesterday I felt safe voting for a progressive party for the first time in decades – now that the question of our membership of the EU is – somewhat – settled. I don’t think people should discount this (perhaps small, perhaps not) section of the voting public.

Think of it another way: for the last 20 or so years if you held the majority view (to want to leave the EU), which major political party was available for you to vote for? Not Labour. Certainly not Lib Dem or Green. Even the Tories were solidly ‘in Europe but not run by Europe’. There wasn’t one.

Moderate, open and generally left-leaning people who happened to hold different views on this single issue were abandoned. “Change your mind and fall into line, or vote for some other screwball party” was the message.

To my eyes, the birth, rise and fall of UKIP mirrors the course of events perfectly, and was entirely predictable.