New Ukip leader Diane James can’t save the party, Theresa May has already tempted their voters away

If Brexit really does mean Brexit, then Ukip could be left without a role

Diane James is named the new leader of Ukip (PA)

Only Ukip could threaten to snatch defeat from the jaws of its remarkable victory in the EU referendum in June. It should have been on a marathon bender with Nigel Farage since. Instead, the party has been convulsed by the faction fighting and backstabbing that has become its trademark.

The election of the MEP Diane James as Farage’s successor is unlikely to produce much of a truce in Ukip’s endless civil war. True, it makes an immediate formal split less likely. If her main rival, Lisa Duffy, had won, Farage and his followers might have formed a new party – a sort of right-wing version of the Jeremy Corbyn fanclub Momentum – planned by Arron Banks, the millionaire Ukip donor and Farage ally. Instead, the proposed internet-based movement will probably rally behind Ukip because James is a protégé of Farage.

But James’s pledge in her acceptance speech at Ukip’s Bournemouth conference to “professionalise” the party will be seen by Farage’s enemies within as a coded warning that they will be neutralised. They include Douglas Carswell, the party’s sole MP, Suzanne Evans, the former deputy chairman blocked from standing in the election for alleged disloyalty to Farage, and Neil Hamilton, the former Tory minister. Farage’s allies want to abolish the party’s national executive to give the leader untrammelled power. The executive barred his favoured candidate for the succession, Steven Woolfe, after he submitted his nomination 17 minutes late.

James, who becomes the eighth woman to currently lead a UK political party, may help Ukip reach out to more women voters. But she has an unenviable job. She may struggle to unite Ukip and deliver her pledge to make it “the UK’s opposition party”. Theresa May, branded “Magpie May” by James, has stolen Ukip’s flagship domestic policy of more grammar schools. The Prime Minister is reaching out to the disaffected working classes who voted for Brexit. A few prominent Ukip figures have defected to the Tories because they like the look of May, and others may follow.

For now, Ukip can campaign for the “hard Brexit” demanded by James. But there is no sign of May backsliding or soft-pedalling on her demands for curbs on EU migration as part of the divorce settlement. She will not want to breathe life into Ukip at a time when some of its own leading figures admit its existence is under threat. If Brexit really does mean Brexit, then Ukip could be left without a role.

Its best hope will be to become “the English party” and a voice of the white working class voters who feel left behind by globalisation and have struggled since the financial crisis. Ukip will need to develop credible policies on the domestic front. But there could be a gap in the market. Under Corbyn, Labour is seen as a metropolitan, London-centric party out of touch with its traditional supporters in the North. Thirty of the 50 English seats where Ukip did best at last year’s general election are Labour-held. Many of the voters there see themselves as “English” rather than “British” as the politics of identity comes to the fore. Sixty per cent of the constituencies represented by Labour MPs voted to leave the EU, which potentially gives Ukip a platform to build on.

Labour’s crushing defeat by the SNP in Scotland, where it took its voters for granted, is a warning of what might happen in England. Even a Ukip collapse would not be good news for Labour, since voters might switch to the Conservatives and tip the balance in Tory-Labour marginals.

James’s biggest challenge will be to step out of Farage’s shadow. His one-man band would be a hard act for anyone to follow. He will be waiting in the wings and the suspicion is that he will be a back-seat driver. If her leadership flops, then we can expect her successor to be… Nigel Farage.