Last week's local elections were always going to be dominated by Brexit and so it came to pass with the Tories having their worst result in 20 years with the loss of 1330 councillors compared to 2015's poll, and Labour also performing dismally.

They were squeezed between anti-Brexit voters who turned to the Lib Dems and pro-Brexit voters furious at the lack of any deal who voted for independents, though not interestingly for UKIP which lost 145 councillors, notably in its heartland of Thanet. The anti-Brexit Lib Dems gained 704 councillors and the anti-Brexit Greens 194.