UKIP paid the price for not being tough enough on immigration in the Stoke-on-Trent Central by-election, former party leader Nigel Farage has said.

Farage said they needed to learn lessons after his successor Paul Nuttall failed to unseat Labour in a hard-fought campaign.

“I feel sorry for Paul Nuttall. He fought a hard campaign. I think there are some lessons to learn from it in terms of how we campaign, in terms of how we target,” Farage said. “There is a debate in Ukip as to how strong we should be on the immigration issue. I personally think we should own it.

“So we will have to look at that and think: were we really tough enough, were we clear enough with the electorate? It has got to be looked at.”

Ukip had seen Stoke – which voted heavily for Brexit – as fertile ground for a challenge to Labour, but Nuttall’s gamble of standing himself failed to come off as Labour’s Gareth Snell held the seat with a majority of 2,620.