22/04/2017
One of the side-effects of this referendum, it would seem, will be the next step in the decline and fall of Ukip. The party is broke, short of willing candidates and bereft of leadership.
Even their most prominent member, Nigel Farage,
has done a runner, claiming he is more useful in Strasbourg and Brussels where, unlike in "easy win" Clacton, his tax-funded expenses will keep flowing.
In a move that no real political party would contemplate, Ukip is also
considering having its people stand down in some seats currently represented by strongly pro-Brexit Conservative MPs.
There is also "keenness" among some Ukip figures for the party to stand aside in seats where a pro-leave Conservative MP is facing a close challenge from the pro-remain Liberal Democrats, in order not to split the vote.
Ukip is said to be preparing to present such a move as a principled decision to best secure departure from the EU. However, it would also save the party cash, allowing it to focus its limited resources on as-yet undeclared target areas.
But unlike previous general elections, there is no sugar daddy waiting in the wings with his pockets full of cash, ready to bail out impoverished candidates. The most recent of the party's big donors, Arron Banks, has gone AWOL and may even stand as a rival candidate in Carswell's former seat, while fending off the
Electoral Commssion which is investigating his spending during the referendum.
With Ukip entering the election campaign deprived of its one and only MPs, and facing the prospect losing its entire corps of revenue-generating MEPs, the party's influence is on the wane. And not even its best friends believe it will make up its losses by gaining even a single MPs.
Farage's aim while he plays on the "stage" offered by the European Parliament, is to promote a "hard Brexit", the pursuit of which has become the holy grail of the "kippers". This they cling onto as their "vision" of ideological purity, for want of any more creative or intelligent ideas on how to manage the UK's exit.
More than anything, it is this refusal to engage in the practical realities of Brexit that is dragging the party down into the well-deserved oblivion that awaits it. The real job of managing the process of extracting ourselves from the European Union is being left to the grown-ups, while Ukip members whinge ineffectually from the sidelines.
In the longer term, the nation is going to have to get used to a new style of national politics, where Ukip is no longer a credible electoral threat, where Labour is in what seems to be terminal decline, where the Lib-Dems are picking up the protest vote and the Tories, for the time being, are all-powerful and sweep everything before them.
Although we've been there before, in the Thatcher years, many of the new generation of political wonks cut their teeth in the Blair years, and have seen only weak Conservatives governments since, lacking any clear ideology or commitment to Conservative principles.
Yet here we are, on the brink of what looks as if it could become a one-party state, even if the future of the Tories is entirely bound up in how well it manages Brexit.
Perhaps it could have been different, had Ukip worked up a realistic exit plan and sought to set the agenda for the next decade but, despite Farage's protestations
to the contrary, the party has nothing useful or interesting to say.
After this election, though, we're unlikely ever to see the likes of the scenes photographed during the 2015 election (pictured), leaving generations to come to ponder over their political history books and to learn about the historical curiosity that was once UKIP.
There again, out of the ashes, another party could rise â but the days of yellow and purple are numbered.
