Kent-educated Diane James is the new leader of UKIP.

The announcement was made at the party's conference in Bournemouth after Nigel Farage delivered a farewell speech to the party he led saying it remained a force in British politics.

Mrs James, who was educated at Rochester Grammar School, said she was deeply honoured to take on the role.

She won comfortably ahead of her four rivals.

Mr Farage said the party had changed the course of British history and hailed the part it had played in delivering Brexit.

He said that recent by-election victories in Kent showed the party was still a force to be reckoned with.

"You only have to look at Kent to see we are winning," he told the party's conference in Bournemouth.

Mr Farage skipped over his own failure to become MP for South Thanet but said the party had broken the mould and confounded the sceptics.

He said: "I literally couldn't have worked any harder or could not have been more determined."

He vowed to remain active in politics but not in the frontline.

READ the thoughts of our political editor Paul Francis on UKIP's changing of the guard

THE RESULTS:

Diane James:8,451 Lisa Duffy: 4,591 Bill Etheridege: 2,052 Philip Broughton:1,545 Elizabeth Jones:1,203