Should he stay, or should he go? Henry Bolton of course – and if he did choose to resign before the UKIP membership have their say, would anyone notice? Or even worse, care?

The woes of UKIP continue as they sink further and further into oblivion. The question that has been asked so many times rears its head again – was it ever more than a one-man band or was it really a political party, as opposed to a political movement based around one campaigning message.

Now that Farage has departed the leadership platform – although not disappeared – and we have Brexit looming in the not too distant future, UKIP seems more and more irrelevant to the political discourse. And with the much rumoured new partnership between Farage and former UKIP backer Arron Banks being trailed in the media again, this must surely signal another nail in the UKIP coffin.

The biggest problem for UKIP is that they have no personalities, no-one that the public have actually heard of (other than Nigel Farage) and therefore no-one who can capture the imagination of a disillusioned electorate. This is the time for small political parties to stand up and be counted, as fewer and fewer people find themselves inspired by either May or Corbyn, and yet once again, the internal strife of UKIP has prevented them from capitalising on this apathy.

It has been suggested that UKIP cannot actually afford the cost of another leadership election and the runners and riders being touted to take over from Bolton when he does eventually go are the not the personalities who would stand aside for the ‘good of the party’. If this is the case, what does it mean for a party that was shaping the political agenda a short while ago? The end of the road, and the sooner the party elite realises that the better for all.

If the party is in terminal decline, then why stay as leader; why not take the opportunity to jump ship and leave the wreck to sink into oblivion? Because politicians are egoists and they think that they can change the direction of a party, policy or at the very least reverse a decline in political fortunes. William Hague, Michael Howard, Gordon Brown are all guilty of this belief in recent years, and were all singularly unsuccessful. So Bolton should quit, but he won’t because, rightly or wrongly his self-belief is stopping him – and so marks the demise of UKIP – RIP.