These results are dire for both main parties. The Tories are fifth and Labour third. But some of the sting has been taken out of the Tory humiliation by Theresa May’s resignation. Jeremy Corbyn, though, finds his leadership under more pressure than it has been since the 2017 general election result. Most worryingly for him, on Brexit the membership is not behind him.

Corbyn will come under intense pressure in the next few days to unequivocally back a second referendum in all circumstances. Just look at how hard Emily Thornberry pushed this point on the BBC results programme. If Labour don’t move to this position, then they’ll be inviting the Lib Dems and the Greens to take a substantial bite out of their electoral coalition. But the success of the Brexit Party in Wales, the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber shows that if Labour do shift to becoming a second referendum party, then they would be running a risk in some of their traditional seats.

What tonight has demonstrated, though, is that Labour’s strategic ambiguity on Brexit which worked so well for it in the 2017 general election, is now hurting the party. However much he doesn’t want to, Corbyn is going to have to make a choice and in the process alienate one part of the Labour electoral coalition. His statement tonight is a shift towards a second referendum, but there’s still some ambiguity in it as he talks about a general election as an alternative to that.

On the Tory side, tonight’s results are a reminder that the party cannot afford to go to the country until it has delivered Brexit. If it does, then the Brexit party will stand and—tonight suggests—make it impossible for the Tories to have any chance of winning and, possibly, even threaten its very survival. So, paradoxically, tonight will have both strengthened Tory candidates who are prepared to leave regardless of whether there’s a deal or not and hurt—particularly with MPs—those candidates whose election might prompt a general election. These two groups of candidates are, obviously, one and the same.