Nigel Farage followed through on his word and resigned as Ukip leader after failing to win the Westminster seat he was fighting for.
Mr Farage had previously said he would be “toast” if he could not win Thanet South and so it proved as he finished runner-up to the Conservative candidate Craig Mackinlay, who won by almost 3,000 votes.
He formally stepped down at around 11.25am, around an hour after the declaration came in Thanet South, but claimed the “next chapter” of Ukip had been born and said there would be a “younger and more energetic Ukip” in future.
He did add that he would have the summer off, but appeared to hint at the possibility of standing at future elections.
Despite losing, Mr Farage claimed he had “never felt happier” after a big “weight had been lifted from his shoulders”.
Mr Farage railed against an electoral system which handed the SNP 56 seats andUkip one on broadly comparable vote tallies.
He joked that compared with the last election – when he was in intensive care following an air crash – he felt “pretty good”.
Mr Farage added: “There was an earthquake in this election. It happened in Scotland, and I think what you saw were a lot of voters so scared of that Labour-SNP coalition that they shifted towards the Conservatives.
“That included some of the people here who voted Ukip last time round.
“But I saw another shift in this election and I saw Ukip the party, apparently the party for retired old colonels, suddenly the party for people under 30, particularly young working women. There is a big change going on in politics.”
He added: “We have a party in Britain who got 50% of the vote in one of the regions and nearly 100% of the seats.
“We have another party that scored nearly as many votes – four million – as well as the European elections last year that has finished up with one seat in Parliament. I think the time has come for real, genuine, radical political reform.
“It is Ukip that will be the party that leads it.”