A dismal night for the ruling Labour Party saw its share of the national vote dip below 20 per cent nationwide. And in a seismic electoral event, Labour lost 12 per cent of its vote in Wales where they were beaten by the Tories for the first time since 1918.

The BBC's projections as at 12.30am GMT were:

Conservative - 27 per cent
UKIP - 17 per cent
Labour - 16 per cent
Lib Dems - 14 per cent
Greens - nine per cent
BNP - six per cent

In the words of one political correspondent, Labour's results are so bad that former labour leader Michael Foot, who led the party to its disastrous 1983 election defeat, has been rehabilitated.

In other news, the BNP won its first MEP, Andrew Brons, after gaining more than 120 000 votes in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

The Conservatives won easily in the East of England, although their share of the vote remained roughly the same as in 2004 - as did that of UKIP, which came second and the Lib Dems, who came third. In the South East region Labour were being pushed into fifth place behind the Green Party.

The results will pile more pressure on embattled premier Gordon Brown who has already had a calamitous week after a drubbing in the local elections, a series of ministerial resignations and persistent sniping at his leadership from his backbenchers.

What happens now depends not so much on the electorate but on Labour MP's view of Brown. Two camps are emerging. The pro-Brown camp will argue that to eject a sitting prime minister with only a year to go before the deadline for  a general election would smack of desperate panic. Despite Brown's personal unpopularity, they will insist that Brown is best placed to steer Britain's economic recovery.

Those in favour of a rapid execution, on the other hand, will point to the historically low Labour share of the vote, the unedifying spectacle of BNP representation in the European Parliament and the prospect of Labour defeat at the general election, even in its traditional heartlands.

The pressure on Brown could become unbearable. Only the absence of someone willing to administer the political coup de grace may keep Brown at Number 10.