Ukip leader Nigel Farage describes his party’s victory in the European parliamentary elections as “historic,” but it is as well not to get too carried away.

This applies as much to Farage supporters as to trade unionists worried at the possible consequences of the Ukip victory.

Commentators point out the rarity of a third force beating both main parties in a national poll.

But this is not an election that affects daily life in Britain.

It concerns a body that is a parliament in name only, powerless to initiate or repeal legislation. It is a “democratic” fig leaf to cover the shameful fact that real powers reside with the unelected and unaccountable European Commission.

Most voters, 66 per cent in Britain last Thursday, were sufficiently hostile or unenthused to skip voting at all.

The EU parliamentary election offers a classic opportunity to stick two fingers up to the political Establishment, as has benefited Liberal Democrats and Greens in the past.

Ukip polled 27.5 per cent in a 34 per cent turnout, which means that just over nine electors out of every hundred registered to vote plumped for Farage’s party.

Please spare us any graphic images of political “landslides” or “earthquakes.”

It’s a custard pie in the face of the three main parliamentary parties, albeit one laced with a house brick for Nick Clegg.

His Liberal Democrats have been all but wiped out in Brussels and will merit equal humiliation next May when they answer to the electorate for their shabby decision to sell every principle previously proclaimed for a handful of seats in a Tory Cabinet.

If the Liberal Democrats’ decline proves terminal in national terms, they have no-one to blame but themselves.

Clegg’s hare-brained decision to challenge Farage to a two-part fight to the death over the EU, emphasised his personal inadequacy and the electorate’s hostility to a European superstate under construction.

That’s why the decision of Labour, the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party to stress their commitment to the EU will return to haunt them.

Farage and his team were able to play on the unpopularity of the EU and widespread voter alienation from the political in-crowd to pose as something new and different.

They gained support from across the political spectrum, appearing as all things to all voters.

Polls of Ukip voters indicate that most back public ownership of private energy companies and the railways, oppose private-sector penetration of our NHS and want the minimum wage to be increased substantially.

In contrast, Farage is a self-declared Thatcherite who backs privatisation, increased arms spending in Nato, cuts in public spending and a flat tax rate for all to benefit fellow millionaires.

Yet he was given an easy ride by Establishment politicians and media because none was interested in challenging him on a clear working-class basis, preferring to obsess, as he does, about immigrants.

Hints by Ed Balls that Labour will target immigration in its general election campaign illustrate the shadow chancellor’s role as an albatross round the party’s neck.

A real challenge to the Establishment neoliberal policies backed by all major parties, including Ukip, will take place on June 21 when the People’s Assembly Against Austerity marches in London.

Everybody looking for a real alternative that puts working people, pensioners and claimants first, should put this date down in their diary today.