RIP to the party that changed Britain for ever: DOMINIC SANDBROOK on how Ukip's infighting came to the fore after the party's reason for existing disappeared after the referendum 

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When, one day, future generations study the rise and fall of the UK Independence Party, they will surely find its colourful story completely mystifying.

How did such a tiny party, founded by a lecturer at the London School of Economics, come to wield such extraordinary influence over the fate of our country?

How did an outfit dismissed by David Cameron as ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’ make such inroads into the formerly Labour-voting North?

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage and his supporters celebrate after Britain voted to leave the EU. Only a few years ago, the prospect of Britain leaving the EU was simply unthinkable

And how, above all, did a party that has included such shameless, scandal-plagued self-promoters as Robert Kilroy-Silk and Neil Hamilton become the vehicle for a political revolution that would take Britain out of the EU and radically recast our national destiny?

Against this background, Ukip’s recent travails are simply par for the course. Surely only in Ukip could Nigel Farage step aside for the third time as leader, only for his replacement, Diane James, to resign after only 18 days.

And surely only in Ukip could the favourite to succeed her, the charismatic Steven Woolfe, be rushed to hospital in Strasbourg just two days later, after an alleged punch-up with one of his fellow Ukip MEPs.

Given yesterday’s shocking news, it takes a little effort to remember that Ukip has just pulled off the greatest coup in British political history. Only a few years ago, the prospect of Britain leaving the EU was simply unthinkable.

Ukip MEP Steven Woolfe recovering in hospital after he collapsed following an altercation with another Ukip MEP leaving the party in turmoil

But much of the responsibility — or the credit, if you prefer — belongs to Mr Farage and his party, who were campaigning for Brexit at a time when most people thought them a joke.

To some degree, Ukip has simply been the victim of its own success. Once the British people voted for Brexit, the party lost its driving principle.

Little wonder, then, that in the past few weeks, its politics have been dominated not by policy or by ideology, but by the horrendously poisonous intrigues surrounding its most prominent figures.

All of this seemed unimaginable back in 1991, when Professor Alan Sked, a historian at the London School of Economics — who was appalled by the relentless expansion of the EU — set up the Anti-Federalist League to fight against the Maastricht Treaty which formalised the character of the modern European Union.

In 1993, Professor Sked’s group evolved into the UK Independence Party, and he remained as leader for the next four years. By the end of the Nineties, however, he had stepped aside, warning publicly that his party had been infiltrated by the far-Right.

Among the newcomers was the former City commodities trader Nigel Farage, who became leader in 2006. But for a long time, Ukip seemed simply a joke.

The UK Independence Party was formed by historian Professor Alan Sked. Later TV presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk was appointed the party's leader  

Indeed, many people knew it only as a vehicle for the orange-hued TV presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk, who succeeded Nick Clegg, of all people, as MEP for the East Midlands in 2004.

Mr Farage’s genius was to transform Ukip into Britain’s first genuinely populist political party. He tapped public frustration, not just with the bureaucracy and wastefulness of the EU, but with surging immigration, stagnant living standards and the corruption exposed in the Commons expenses scandal. 

Following the financial crash of 2007-08, which shattered many voters’ faith in the old order, Ukip’s progress, particularly in European and local elections, was simply remarkable. At the 2009 European Parliament elections, the party’s national vote share was almost 17 per cent.

Mr Farage’s genius was to transform Ukip into Britain’s first genuinely populist political party. He tapped public frustration, not just with the bureaucracy and wastefulness of the EU, but with surging immigration

Much of this was down to one man. Although Mr Farage never managed to win the Westminster seat he so obviously craved, he nevertheless became one of the most recognisable and controversial figures in the land. Liberals hated him, dismissing him as a demagogue who was exploiting public fears. 

But they hugely underestimated his drive, commitment and appeal to the common man, captured above all by his fondness for a pint and a fag.

And certainly neither the cut-glass David Cameron nor the bloodless Ed Miliband had his gift for speaking directly to great swathes of working-class England, where he sometimes seemed the only man who dared to say what millions were thinking. 

By 2014, Ukip’s rise had shattered all predictions. In that year’s European elections, it finished first with almost 27 per cent, picking up a record 24 MEPs.

It was this apparently unstoppable rise that explains Mr Cameron’s fatal decision to call a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU — the decision that, in the long run, ended his political career.

By 2014, Ukip’s rise had shattered all predictions. In that year’s European elections, it finished first with almost 27 per cent, picking up a record 24 MEPs

But whatever future historians may say about Cameron’s tactical misjudgment, the plain fact is that without Ukip, and without Nigel Farage, it would never have happened.

The paradox is that even as Ukip approached its moment of destiny, its internal politics were more toxic than ever. Mr Farage’s success came at a heavy personal cost.

Badly injured in a near-fatal plane crash on general election polling day in 2010, he suffered from persistent ill health, while his controversial public image meant he was often harassed and threatened in public, even when eating Sunday lunch in a pub with his family.

Though Ukip piled up almost four million votes in the 2015 general election — a record for an insurgent fourth party — it only returned one MP, the Tory turncoat Douglas Carswell, to Westminster.

Nigel Farage speaking yesterday after Steven Woolfe was hospitalised. Mr Farage stood down as Ukip leader earlier this year 

This was a poor showing indeed, though Ukip did take huge numbers of votes from Labour in the working-class Northern heartlands where mass migration and dying industries had combined to leave many people feeling Ed Miliband’s party no longer spoke for them.

The question remains whether those voters will ever return to Labour’s banner, especially while Jeremy Corbyn is in charge. And in that regard, you could also argue that Ukip has gone some way to hastening the demise of the Labour party.

As for Farage, at last year’s election he again failed to win a seat after the Conservatives poured resources into beating him in South Thanet.

Perhaps because of that, Ukip’s internal machinations tipped over into chaos. Some insiders resented Mr Farage as an autocratic bully; others treated him almost as the leader of a cult.

Victory in June’s Brexit referendum was of course the party’s hour of glory, but it was also almost certainly its last hurrah. Now that the Brussels dragon has been slain, the party’s very reason for existing has simply disappeared.

With Theresa May so clearly determined to be the champion of working-class Britain against the metropolitan liberal elite, it is increasingly hard to see what Ukip is for.

After all, for voters who want old-fashioned values, immigration controls and grammar schools, Mrs May’s Conservatives seem a more natural home than a near-bankrupt party tearing itself apart.

Perhaps it is because the stakes are now so low, therefore, that the party’s internal culture has become so bitter. On top of all this, Ukip is dead broke.

Diane James succeed Nigel Farage as leader of Ukip but stood down from her role just 18 days later 

Its accounts are reportedly almost £1 million in the red, and now that its multimillionaire backer, the businessman Arron Banks, has threatened to leave the party, it is hard to see any way back.

So although Farage, Douglas Carswell, Neil Hamilton — now leader of Ukip in Wales — and Steven Woolfe, when he recovers, may battle for control of the party, the truth is that Ukip’s moment in the sun has surely passed.

None of this is meant to diminish the party’s extraordinary impact. I cannot think of a comparable example of a small group of largely derided activists, who came together to fight for an unfashionable cause and ended up changing the entire course of our political, diplomatic and economic history.

But the reality is that, unless it can somehow rise above its vicious court politics, Ukip’s day is done. It has, of course, pulled off a miracle before. But I wouldn’t bet on it doing so again.