Nigel Farage's Westminster dream ends in tatters

Two weeks ago Nigel Farage ended a heavy night of drinking by standing on his chair in a small Italian restaurant and serenading party officials, journalists and bemused fellow diners with a rendition of "New York, New York". The leader of the UK Independence party was in celebratory mode, just hours after the publication of a poll showing him nine points ahead in the Kent seat of South Thanet.

The joyous outburst was a rare glimpse of the old fun-loving Mr Farage during an otherwise lacklustre campaign. And it may explain why, failing for the seventh time to become a Ukip MP, he did not appear too disappointed to be resigning as party leader.

"On a personal level, I feel an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders," he said. "I've never felt happier."

It was an end few people foresaw when Mr Farage was selected to fight South Thanet last August.

At the time, Ukip was on about 13 per cent in the polls, having won the European election the previous May to become the first party outside the mainstream to win a national British election. And his decision to fight a three-way marginal in his home county of Kent looked more sensible than his choice in 2010, when he lost to John Bercow in Buckingham. As Speaker of the House of Commons, Mr Bercow was not contested by the other major parties, and promptly crushed Mr Farage.

Ukip officials argued on Thursday night that their party had been subject to a classic smaller-party squeeze, the likes of which had sapped support from the Liberal Democrats in 2010 during the final stages of their campaign.

Douglas Carswell, the party's sole MP after winning in Clacton, has jumped to the front of the list of likely leadership contenders.

Whatever the nature of Mr Farage's political demise, his achievements are unarguable. When he first took over the party in 2006 it was in disarray, having averaged under 3 per cent in the seats it contested in 2005, and looking at a deal with the racist British National party as the most likely route to success.

Now, despite Mr Farage's failure in South Thanet, the party is heading for a 12 per cent national vote share and is likely to win one seat.

The Ukip leader's success lay in two things. First, his straight-talking manner convinced voters of his status as a political outsider, despite his background as a privately educated former commodities broker in the City of London.

Second, he put a jovial and charismatic face on a strategy that focused on the essentially negative message that Britain - a member of the EU with relatively high levels of immigration - was broken.

To that jovial nature came a more steely determination and sense of drive after a near-death experience, when the light aircraft in which he was travelling crashed on the day of the 2010 election.

In the aftermath of that election, Mr Farage decided to focus more ruthlessly on the seats in which the party was likely to thrive, particularly along the east coast of England.

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Mr Farage's skill was to make this message mainstream. Party advisers say a turning point came in 2013 when a Doncaster couple were banned from fostering children because of their support for Ukip. As the dispute over the council's ban escalated, all three major party leaders were forced to insist Ukip was not a racist party, thereby giving permission for millions of voters to consider a party previously thought unpalatable.

Last year's European elections, at which the party won 27 per cent of the vote, may turn out to have been a high point.

Having entered the general election campaign promising to shake up politics for good, he suffered a fate familiar to smaller party leaders, as the public gaze shifted to the two parties that could win.

Mr Farage said that some would-be Ukip voters had switched to the Tories, because of their fear of a Labour government. He was also stymied by the rise of the Scottish National party, which took on the mantle of political outsiders to which Mr Farage had hoped to lay sole claim.

But in the end, his political career was ended not by the performance of his party on a national level, but his own failure to win over Thanet voters.

Knowing defeat was almost certain to cost Mr Farage his job as leader, and so hobble Ukip at least in the short term, the Conservatives poured resources into the seat. Coupled with an uncharacteristically subdued campaign from Mr Farage - he said he had been ill during its earlier stages - they ensured his seventh attempt to join the Westminster elite he derided would end in his most bruising failure.

Yet Mr Farage has left open the possibility of standing in Ukip's leadership election, following a "summer off". He may be back.

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