SO HOW LOW CAN THE TORIES GO?

Party faces wipeout at polls... as Conservative MEP warns: We may never recover from this

A TOP Tory MEP has predicted the party’s candidates will be wiped out in today’s Euro elections.

In private messages, Daniel Hannan said the Conservatives will be left with no MEPs as voters flock to Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party.

He also warned that the Tories faced ‘the end of our party’ and the election of a Corbyn government. His bleak assessment came as a poll showed the Tories could win just seven per cent of the vote. Mr Hannan, who represents the South East of England, made the comments on a WhatsApp group for Tory activists. ‘I am expecting us to end up with zero MEPs,’ he wrote. ‘Sadly it will give Corbyn unstoppable momentum and this, paradoxically, will derail Brexit. Funny old world.’ In separate messages, he suggested the Tories could slip below 10 per cent when votes are counted.

‘If our members stay away, or vote for another party, we may well slip below 10 per cent – a level from which no party bounces back.

‘We’re looking, not just at a Corbyn government, but at the end of our party as a viable movement.’

The YouGov poll for the Times showed both main parties being hammered when the results are published on Sunday. It put the Brexit Party on 37 per cent, the Liberal Democrats on 19 per cent and Labour on 13 per cent, just one point ahead of the Greens. The Tories were in fifth on seven points, just four ahead of Ukip. In a sign of ebbing support among activists, the ConHome website urged Tory supporters to abstain rather than vote for the party unless Theresa May quits ahead of polling today.

A former civil service boss was accused of ditching Whitehall impartiality by announcing he would be voting for the Lib Dems today.

Lord (Gus) O’Donnell said it was his ‘civic duty’ to vote for the most consistently Remain party.

The former cabinet secretary rote in the Times that the clearest choice was ‘voting Liberal Democrat in England, so that’s what I will do’. He said: ‘I would urge all those who support Remain to do the same. It feels very strange to be specifying a preference for a particular party.

‘However, as a crossbencher in the Lords, and faced with a decision that will affect generations to come, I believe it is my civic duty to vote and there is now no reason not to be clear about how I use this precious power that democracies bestow on their citizens.’

Tory MP Neil O’Brien said: ‘The trend of former senior civil servants getting involved in politics and particularly declaring their allegiance is going to be very bad for the civil service longer term.’

Yesterday another Conservative peer was suspended from the party whip for pledging to vote Liberal Democrat in the European elections.

Lord Cooper, the founder of pollster Populus who was David Cameron’s director of strategy in Downing Street, received the punishment two days after it was imposed on former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine.

He tweeted: ‘I have come to the same conclusion as Michael Heseltine, for exactly the same reasons – and will be voting Lib Dem in Thursday’s European parliament elections.’

Lord Cooper was subsequently told by his chief whip that ‘endorsing the candidates of another party is not compatible with taking the Conservative whip’.

Labour peer Lord Cashman said he had quit his party to vote Lib Dem.

The former EastEnders actor said: ‘I can’t trust Jeremy Corbyn or the people around him on the defining issue in postwar Britain, so on Thursday I will not be voting for the Labour Party. As Matthew Parris said, I am not a Liberal Democrat, but I support their absolute consistency. Voting Lib Dem in the EU elections.’

Later he wrote: ‘ I think I’ve just resigned from the Labour party by declaring that I will support the Liberal Democrats in the European elections.’

‘It will help Corbyn and derail Brexit’