147 councillors and largest opposition party in 5 councils

All 34 councils have now declared their results and UKIP has won an unprecedented 147 seats in the local elections - a 139 seat gain.

UKIP is now the largest opposition party in five councils - Lincolnshire with 16 councillors, Buckinghamshire with 6, West Sussex with 10, Kent with 17 and Norfolk with 15.  UKIP is joint second in Essex with Labour and the Lib Dems all on 9 councillors each.  A huge 67% of the vote in UKIP-controlled Ramsey went to UKIP candidates.

The BNP lost all three of the seats they were defending and now have none which is good but the extremist Greens gained 5 seats which is disappointing.

The Tories have been navel-gazing, talking about how they are going to "win back" votes from UKIP (because of course they rightfully belong to them) but they just seem to be banging on about "Europe" (they mean the EU) all the time.  I don't think UKIPpers need worry about the Tories figuring out where they're going wrong any time soon, let along doing something about it!

The breakdown of UKIP councillors by county is as follows:

Buckinghamshire (6)
Cambridgeshire (12)
Cornwall (6)
Derbyshire (4)
Dorset (1)
East Sussex (7)
Essex (9)
Gloucestershire (3)
Hampshire (10)
Isle of Wight (2)
Kent (17)
Leicestershire (2)
Lincolnshire (16)
Norfolk (15)
North Yorkshire (2)
Northamptonshire (3)
Somerset (3)
Staffordshire (2)
Suffolk (9)
Surrey (3)
West Sussex (10)
Wiltshire (1)
Worcestershire (4)

Well done to all those candidates who stood for UKIP and to their family and the activists that supported them.