AS political activists tidy away the polling day clutter of unused leaflets, rosettes and sheets of paper covered in calculations of turnout and proportions of vote by polling district, the reality of the results is starting to sink in.

The media don’t seem to have noticed, but the Green Party is celebrating gaining a third MEP, Dr Molly Scott-Cato, in the South West region and winning new councillors, including on new councils across the country. 

This was not a foregone conclusion in an election where we had precious little coverage and that the media had decided was only about Ukip. 

We’ve also gained 23 seats at the local elections, meaning the Green Party now has 162 councillors on 56 councils and are installed as the official opposition in Liverpool and Solihull, Islington and Lewisham in London, and remain the official opposition in Norwich. 

We’ve also come fourth ahead of the Lib Dems across the country. 

From my perspective in Islington, where residents voted for 47 Labour councillors and one Green, the so-called Ukip earthquake sounds pretty far-fetched. 

However, while the local result in my ward produced just 247 Ukip votes, it is still important to think about what the Ukip story is and what it might mean. 

During the election campaign I encountered just 16 people who called themselves Ukip voters on the doorstep. 

While talking with them it was clear that they were often concerned about provision of services, lack of school places, scarcity of affordable housing and poor wages rather than an overtly anti-immigrant agenda. 

Certainly positive Green messages about an economy run for the benefit of people not corporations, with jobs paying the living wage and reducing the pay gap went down well. 

My local fishmonger, who is half Burmese, could see the irony in his interest in Ukip, but is a prime example of the way that even migrants are distinguishing between the “good” immigrants that they know and the “bad” immigrants they read about in the press.

Putting this together with low turnouts for voting, you start to build a picture of many people feeling that no-one is looking after their interests. 

Ukip has somehow caught people’s imagination with a few issues and managed to make people feel that it is listening and will put things right. Whatever you think about the Ukip solution — and it’s not even clear whether Ukip yet has any policies in place to provide a solution — it has been impressively convincing to people across the country who have voted for it in droves.

The Labour response, in the form of an open letter to Ukip voters in the Express from Labour shadow justice minister Sadiq Khan this week, addresses concern about the cost of living crisis but it does nothing to defuse the culture of blaming immigrants for problems that should more rightly be laid at the door of British politicians. 

The lack of school places is a result of poor planning and not the fault of migrants. 

Poorly paid jobs could be remedied by making the minimum wage a living wage. 

Does Khan’s letter mean that a vote for Labour is now a vote for a party apologising for not being tough enough on immigration? 

By all means let’s hear people’s concerns and address them with radical policies to reset the economy to work for the benefit of people not corporations, but accepting the Ukip value system and failing to challenge the anti-immigrant rhetoric is a worrying political failure. 

If Labour wants to let the agenda get pushed to the right and decide to go all anti-immigrant, the Greens will be there to hoover up the anti-racist vote, but it doesn’t make sense for Labour to do this. 

You don’t defeat an opponent by saying that it is right on all their key messages and your record in government was terrible.  

Going into the next election rubbing your hands and saying Ukip is right so vote Labour does not work as a winning strategy.

Across the country 31 million people did not vote last Thursday. That is to the shame of British politics. 

Nigel Farage doesn’t do policies any more, apparently “they caused big problems,” so his party just does “issues” and not very many of them. 

The challenge for politicians in the run-up to the general election is to engage those voters who don’t normally turn out to vote with positive messages about doing things differently and changing people’s lives for the better. 

We need to distinguish between people who vote Ukip and Ukip the organisation. Just as Labour does not own its voters, Ukip, despite the media infatuation, does not have a mind control device over those who supported it. 

Caroline Russell is Green Party sole opposition councillor on Islington Council.