Sadly last night's announcement on the Basildon Council website about UKIP winning three seats was a bit premature ... and wrong! In the end, Basildon Council had declared 15 results in total despite only have 4 seats contested.
Moving on from that minor disappointment though, UKIP has made gains at the expense of the Tories, the Lib Dems and Labour (the former two more so as expected). Some of the highlights include: gained one councillor in North East Lincs, one in Thurrock (taking the total to three) and one in Vale of Glamorgan; turned a Tory majority of 700 into 25 in Great Yarmouth in a ward that has never had a UKIP candidate before; a great second in Hetton (Lab 1628, UKIP 1363, LD 154); second or third in all seats in Plymouth and all except one in Tandridge; two second places out of four wards contested in Runymede.
Only one mayoral election has declared so far - Liverpool - and the UKIP candidate came 8th out of 12 on first preference votes. Second preference would have been the interesting one to see but the Labour candidate got over 59% of the vote so they weren't counted. Three elected mayor referenda results have been declared so far and all three have said no.
wonkotsane is an author at Bloggers4UKIP.
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