50 TORY HAVE TO
Shake-up will boost power of grassroots
THE TORIES will lose 50 seats at a general election if Boris Johnson fails to win over supporters of the Brexit Party, a shock poll predicts.
The catastrophic wipeout would see two Cabinet ministers – Environment Secretary Theresa Villiers and Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd – lose their seats, while 35 of the casualties would be Brexiteer MPS.
It would leave Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour as the biggest party with 288 seats, opening the door for a Remain alliance with the Lib Dems and SNP.
The threat to the Tories from the Brexit Party comes as speculation grows there will be another general election following a no confidence vote in Parliament.
Brexit Party sources have revealed they have been approached by senior Tory ministers who support leaving the EU, begging Nigel Farage to keep putting up candidates to “keep the government honest on Brexit”. With another 150 Brexit Party candidates set to be unveiled this week, a senior party source said: “We have spoken to two [pro-brexit] senior ministers who told us that putting up candidates against them will mean they will lose their seats.
“But they said, ‘Please keep putting candidates up because it is the one thing keeping the Government honest on Brexit. If you don’t do it we won’t leave [the EU] on 31 October’.”
The predicted loss of 50 seats is based on the latest Comres poll for Britain Elects, which put Labour on 30 per cent, the Conservatives on 29, the Lib Dems on 16 and Brexit Party on 15.
In the event of the result, the Brexit Party could still win up to two seats – including the safe Tory constituency of Boston and Skegness, the Electoral Calculus website claims.
This is Britain’s biggest Leave supporting constituency.
However, in the majority of cases, the Conservative/brexit Party vote would allow the Lib Dems or Labour through the middle, as happened in the recent Brecon and Radnorshire by-election.
Comres chairman Andrew Hawkins said his polling company estimates that around two-thirds of the Brexit Party vote has come from the Conservatives. He said: “We BORIS Johnson could be made to take part in phoneins with the public under a top Tory reformer’s plans.
Dinah Glover is favourite to be elected vice-president of the National Conservative Conference tomorrow.
The “grassroots champion” also wants party associations to have more of a say in candidate selection.
Ms Glover has seen rising anger from associations that have been prevented from deselecting rogue Remainer MPS such as Dominic Grieve.
Backed by seniortories, she said: “The discontent at the heart of our party is a real and dangerous threat, and undermines what made it a great campaigning machine.”
‘Hard to tell how voters would split’
can’t tell how its voters would split between the main parties if BXP stood down.
“But, of the 15 per cent vote share we have overall for the Brexit Party, almost two-thirds is accounted for by past Tory voters.
“It would seem reasonable to assume that if the Tories can deliver Brexit, and the Brexit Party were to stand down, the Tory vote share is likely to go from the 29 per cent we registered in that poll, up to around 33 per cent.”
With a confidence vote in Parliament expected in the first week of September when MPS return, Mr Johnson is relying on support from 17 independent Labour and Change UK parties to prevent an election – because they would all likely lose their seats.
But the Prime Minister is also facing a new assault from Remainer MPS in his own party. A senior