NIGEL Farage’s Brexit Party trounced its nearest rivals in the European Parliamentary elections for the south east – gaining 915,686 votes to 653,743 cast for the Liberal Democrats.

Bucking the trend, Waverley Borough Council’s local count – with a 44.6 per cent turnout – had the Lib Dems in the top spot with 14,156 votes and The Brexit Party in second position with 11,599.

Going with the flow, East Hampshire District Council, with a 43.4 per cent turnout, had The Brexit Party first with 14,330 and the Lib Dems runners-up with 11,397.

Feelings ran high across the region in the run-up to Sunday’s count, with Don MacNaughton, an 81-year-old ex-paratrooper campaigning for Mr Farage’s party, having a milkshake hurled at him outside Aldershot polling station.

Waverley’s only EU candidate – former Haslemere mayor David Round – escaped the milkshake mania that also saw Mr Farage splattered.

But the Tory town councillor was suspended by his own party for standing as an Independent for the south east region, which encompasses the Isle of Wight, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

Mr Round said: “I never expected to win a seat unless there had been a tremendous earthquake in the way people voted.

“When I decided to stand towards the end of April, there was a distinct possibility the prime minister would have pulled the election, and that the electorate would have turned against all the parties and voted for independent spirits.

“But that was not to be.

“At Sunday’s count there was such a scrum around Farage it was impossible to get near him.

“For Independents like me, it was very difficult to get our message across. I am grateful for the interest shown by the Herald.”

* The ten elected MEPs comprise four Brexit Party, three Lib Dems, one Green, one Conservative and one Labour.