The thing is the Conservative Party has become the party of no given ideology

Bow Group’s Ben Harris-Quincey

Ben Harris-Quincey, chairman of right-wing think tank the Bow Group, said: “The thing is the Tories have already set the bar pretty low by saying they could lose between 800 and 1,000 seats.” Thus, anything less in tomorrow’s local council elections could be spun as reasonable night, when Mr Harris-Quinney suggested a loss of several hundred seats nationwide would be an “absolute disaster”. He said: “The thing is the Conservative Party has become the party of no given ideology and no plan and I think the British public are reacting to that.

“The Conservative Party is likely to take a double blow during these elections and the European elections and they are chasing fourth place.

“I think we could see catastrophic losses for them.”

Mrs May has already acknowledged her time as Prime Minister is running out after failing to get her Brexit deal through Commons on three separate occasions – and Mr Harris-Quinney suggested tomorrow could hasten her departure still further, possibly as soon as Friday.

He said: “I think the 1922 Committee has held back from changing the rules but if the results are bad enough they will look again so she can be forced out.”

Mr Harris-Quincey suggested Tory MPs were likely to be motivated by “self-preservation”, given that their fortunes were tied to those of Mrs May for as long as she remained in Number 10.”

Suggesting the party needed a “revolution” similar to the one which saw Jeremy Corbyn elected leader of the Labour Party, he said: “What is not needed is May 2.0, David Lidington or somebody like that.

“I don’t think the right person actually exists within the Parliamentary Conservative Party in fact.

“What the Conservative Party needs to do is look beyond Parliament rather than moving deckchairs round on the Titanic.”

According to the Britain Elects website, which compiles surveys undertaken by British Polling Council pollsters centred on notional general election results, Conservative Party support has dropped by nine points in barely a month, which Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party steadily climbing since its launch last month.

Andrew Hawkins, chairman of pollsters ComRes, said: “In 2015, the Tories gained 28 councils, mostly from NOC, as well as 504 additional council seats. 

“Labour, in contrast, lost 238 councillors, while the post-Coalition Liberal Democrats lost 415.  UKIP won an additional 112 councillors.”

Mr Hawkins pointed out that psephologists Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher were forecasting those gains would be reversed with the Tories losing between 500 and 1000 seats.

However, he added: “Given that postal ballots will have hit doormats at around the time when ComRes published the lowest Tory Westminster vote share of any pollster since 1997 (23 percent), it seems reasonable to expect Tory losses to be at the upper limit of this range – or higher.”

The Conservative Party is also facing the prospect of fielding candidates in the European Parliamentary elections on May 23, a prospect Tory group leader in Brussels Ashley Fox told Express.co.uk last month he was not looking forward to.

He added: “I’m not particularly enthusiastic about the prospect and these elections will be difficult.

“Voters will ask themselves why are we voting for representatives in an organisation we voted to leave three years ago?”

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