UKIP aims to replace Labour as the party of working people – and voters in the north are its prime target.

That was the clarion call of new leader Paul Nuttall who has set his sights on winning over disenchanted Labour voters, saying his ambition was to replace Jeremy Corbyn’s party and make Ukip “the patriotic voice of working people”.

With his Scouse accent and straight-talking manner the man from Bootle, on Merseyside, has the raw materials to come across more like “a friend of the working man” than the Labour leader, whom the Ukip leader said was more interested in “dinner party” topics, such as climate change and fair trade, than the interests of its working-class voters, such as immigration, crime and social mobility.

At first glance, Mr Nuttall sounds like a kind of Donald Trump-figure capable of tapping into fears of immigration and stoking up anger about feeling left behind while an elite prospers.

But he faces some pretty hefty challenges too.

His party has been unsettled by having two leadership contests in rapid succession after Nigel Farage announced his intention to stand down as leader in the wake of the EU referendum. Mr Nuttall promised an end to the infighting and chaos that has blighted Ukip but it remains to be seen if he possesses the broad appeal that saw Mr Farage win hearts and minds in the wealthy Southern shires as well as in the North and even in the US.

Like him or loath him Mr Farage has been a hugely effective figure who secured Brexit - Ukip’s primary aim – against all the odds.

Mr Nuttall needs to prove that Ukip isn’t a one-man, one-issue party that will fracture without its grinning figurehead but that it has the discipline to become a sustainable force in British politics.