The UK Independence Party today celebrated big election gains as it won its first European Parliamentary seat in the Yorkshire and Humber region.

The party's victory in the region last night mirrored gains across the country as Labour and the Tories saw their support crash to record lows.

With all ten regional results in for England and Wales, the Eurosceptic UKIP had quadrupled its tally of MEPs to 12 and collected 17 per cent of the vote, pushing the Liberal Democrats into fourth place.

In Yorkshire both Labour and Conservatives lost one of their three existing representatives as each won only two seats. The Liberal Democrats kept one seat, with the UKIP taking the last.

In the last election in 1999 there were seven seats available but one seat was reallocated due to the expansion of the EU.

Godfrey Bloom UKIP's successful candidate said: "I am very pleased. It is a terrific result for what is basically a new party. It is the first time the British people have been shown a party which wants to withdraw from Europe."

Bradford residents voted for their European representatives by post as they did in the local government elections which on Friday saw Bradford Council stay in no overall control but with the Conservatives as the dominant party.

The trial of postal voting in the region saw an increased European turnout with Labour securing 26.3 per cent of the vote, compared with 24.6 per cent for the Tories. UKIP came in with 14.5 per cent, just trailing the Lib Dems on 15.6 per cent.

Fears of a large BNP vote did not materialise with the extreme far-right party securing only about eight per cent of the poll. Turnout more than doubled from 19.75 per cent in 1999 to 43.05 per cent.

Labour MEP Linda McAvan was returned with Richard Corbett but David Bowe lost his seat.

For the Conservatives Timothy Kirkhope and Edward McMillan-Scott were elected. Their third choice candidate, Bradford's Mohammed Riaz, missed out due to the success of UKIP.

Mr Kirkhope said: "I am very sad Mohammed is not going to take one of our seats. Bradford on Friday, from the Conservative point of view, was a very great result and a lot of that was down to his hard work."

Liberal Democrat Diana Wallis was also re-elected, she said: "It was always going to be a big ask to increase the number of seats we won to two, because of the reduced number of seats available this time, but we are making good steady progress."

Although nationally the UKIP gains were not as great as some polls had predicted, it still represented a major breakthrough for a fringe party which had previously struggled to make an impact on the polls.

The successful candidates included former TV presenter Robert Kilroy-Silk, whose recruitment to the party helped galvanise their campaign.

In contrast it was another grim night for Labour which saw its support fall six points to 22 per cent - its lowest level in any national elections since 1918.

However the biggest losers were the Conservatives who saw their share of the vote fall 10 points to 27 per cent.

In total, the Conservatives have 25 seats, Labour 17, UKIP 12, the Liberal Democrats 11 and others three.