Boris Johnson could be facing a Tory revolt over his expected U-turn on a national lockdown. 

The Prime Minister is holding a press conference at 6.30 pm today where he is set to impose a national lockdown on the whole country despite consistently defending his three-tier system.

He was expected to make the announcement on Monday but is said to be bringing it forward to Saturday after the plans were leaked to a number of national newspapers.

Many Conservative backbenchers think a second lockdown should be put to a vote in Parliament and have signalled that they will go against their party.

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Tory MP Desmond Swayne said he thought the Government would win a vote on extra lockdown measures but said those who want to express dissent as elected representatives ‘have every right to do so’.

He told MailOnline: ‘I don’t doubt it is a difficult decision, but that doesn’t alter it being the wrong decision. The things that it does to our economy our health and everything else is worse than the disease they are combating.’

Andrew Bridgen MP also suggested he would not support the measure. He said: ‘These are huge decisions that the government has to make with enormous economic and political ramifications.

‘The Sage so-called experts won’t be held to account for the correctness of their decisions at the next general elections. We will.’

It is unclear how many Tory MPs could revolt against the Government. Earlier this week more than 50 Conservative MPs in ‘red wall’ constituencies demanded a post-coronavirus economy plan for the north of England and a ‘roadmap out of lockdown’ from the Prime Minister.

In a sign of Downing Street’s desperation to avoid a mutiny, rebel ringleader Steve Baker was summoned to No10 for talks this afternoon.   

Even if some Conservatives rebel against the Government, the vote is likely to pass with the support of Labour, which has been calling for a ‘circuit breaker’ lockdown for about two weeks. 

It is thought that Mr Johnson was persuaded to change his position after Sage modelling predicted 4,000 daily coronavirus deaths over the winter. 

The Prime Minister is expected to announce the closure of restaurants pubs and non-essential shops under a new ‘tier four’ level of restrictions,

As with the initial lockdown in March, people will be banned from mixing households and told to only leave their homes for essential reasons such as food shopping and exercise.

However, unlike the March lockdown schools and universities are expected to remain open – despite unions warning they are key to the spread and arguing for their closure.

Circuit-breaker lockdowns have already been implemented in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. 

Most recently French President Emmenuel Macron enforced a dramatic lockdown on the entire country and many other European media outlets have reported that their leaders are considering lockdowns. 

The number of patients taken to hospital with coronavirus has doubled over the last two weeks in England with 10,708 currently being treated by the NHS. 

There are currently 761 deaths a week where coronavirus is mentioned on a death certificate. 

But people are also worried about the consequences of another lockdown, the effectiveness of which is disagreed about within the scientific community, and how it would decimate the UK’s economy. 

Anti-lockdown group Recovery reported that out of the people they surveyed around 70% of people were more worried about the effects of a lockdown than coronavirus.

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