So in the end Leave voters decided to save Nigel Farage from himself by once again using their strategic nous to herd behind the party that could do most to take us out of the European Union. Which wasn’t the Brexit party.
As widely predicted, including by me, the Brexit party did not even come close to winning a single parliamentary seat. In fact, as I write, its final vote share overall is on course to replicate the two per cent achieved by Ukip under Paul Nuttall in 2017.
Most heavily-defeated leaders who had spent six weeks predicting swathes of MPs for their party in the Commons might have turned to introspection, admitted errors and spoke of “learning lessons” after such a result. But such talk was not for Nigel Farage today and I am glad.
Because looking back at the epic year in politics, once again he can be seen to have vied with his Brexiteer rival and ultimate nemesis Boris Johnson as the central driving force.
It was his creation of the Brexit party and its annihilation of the Conservative party at the European elections that forced the removal of Theresa May by demonstrating to the Tories that their core vote was on the brink of deserting them for good.
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And even in this general election, Farage ended up finding a good story to tell at the post-mortem table; he generally does.
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