UKIP gained a notable second in the safe Labour seat of Bolton South East – beating Tory candidate Mudasir Dean into third place.

Labour’s Yasmin Qureshi claimed victory with an increased majority taking 20,555 votes.

UKIP candidate Jeff Armstrong gained 9,627 votes narrowly beating Mr Dean who polled 8,289 votes.

Green Party leader in Bolton Alan Johnson polled 1,200 votes beating Lib Dem candidate Darren Reynolds into fifth place with 1,072 votes.

A delighted Ms Qureshi said: "Increasing your majority in current time is great and recently my mother has been unwell, but all my friends and comrades have worked really hard and so to be able to achieve this result despite having to worry about my mum made it quite emotional.

"UKIP are doing quite well across the country, they are thriving on the fact that millions of people in the country feel disadvantaged economically and socially and the UKIP message is very simple, that it is all to do with immigrants but over the next five years I will be making an effort to engage with people even more than I do already."

UKIP candidate Jeff Armstrong said: "This is a very good result for UKIP Bolton to get 25 per cent of the vote, I'm happy with second place but it would have been bettetr coming first."

Tory candidate Mr Dean was bullish in his assertion that the UKIP vote will fall five years from now, despite the outcome.

He said: "There is a significant difference between the Conservatives and UKIP.

"Hopefully when we have a Conservative government tomorrow it will be the Conservatives who give people a say on Europe.

"UKIP have but they will be unable to deliver it.

"The key issues such as immigration, we will be a position to deliver for people whereas UKIP will not.

"When that heppens the UKIP vote will decrease five years from now."