40% of grassroots Tory councillors set to back Farage
THERESA May has been warned she is presiding over the ‘death of the Tory Party’ after a devastating poll revealed the immense scale of the grassroots rebellion against her.
The exclusive Mail on Sunday survey shows that 40 per cent of Conservative councillors are planning to vote for Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party in next month’s European elections, in protest against the Prime Minister’s failure to conclude the UK’s exit from the EU.
Three-quarters of her own councillors want Mrs May to resign – and an overwhelming 96 per cent believe the Tory Party has been damaged by the impasse.
Conservative MPs preparing to return to the Commons after the Easter break have been shaken by the strength of feeling in their local associations over Mrs May’s leadership, after she agreed to delay Brexit until the end of October if she cannot strike a deal.
Such is the scale of the anger that the party’s 1922 Committee of backbench MPs will convene on Tuesday to discuss changing the rules to allow a new vote of no confidence in her leadership. Mrs May is currently protected from a challenge until December after last year’s failed coup.
The Tory group on Derbyshire County Council is so disillusioned it has gone on ‘strike’ by refusing to take part in next month’s European election campaign.
The Survation researchers were bombarded with vitriolic remarks by the hundreds of councillors they contacted for the MoS poll.
One said: ‘The Conservative Party is dead. It will take a strong leader to dredge it out of the mud.’
Another said: ‘For God’s sake get on with it [Brexit] – it is killing us on the doorstep.’
The turmoil has made Jeremy Corbyn the most likely victor of the next General Election, according to a string of recent polls, prompting Whitehall mandarins to ratchet up their preparations for a Labour Government. As this newspaper reveals today, Mr Corbyn may ‘boycott’ Downing Street and remain in his North London home if he becomes Prime Minister.
Mr Farage launched his Brexit Party earlier this month, but one poll last week put its support for the European Parliament elections at 27 per cent – well ahead of both Labour, on 22 per cent, and the Tories, who were on 15 per cent. The new party is estimated to have already received more than £1.5 million in donations.
Our poll shows if Boris Johnson was Tory leader for the elections, the number of defectors to the Brexit Party would nearly halve.
Out of those Tory councillors who said they were certain to vote in the elections, 52 per cent said they would vote for their own party, while 40 per cent would vote for the Brexit Party. If Mr Johnson was Prime Minister, the proportion voting Tory rises to 65 per cent, with 22 per cent voting for Mr Farage.
Of the 96 per cent of councillors who believe the Brexit deadlock has damaged the Tories, 39 per cent believe it has done so ‘permanently’. A total of 76 per cent of the councillors want Mrs May to resign – of these, 43 per cent want her to go now, while 33 per cent want her to go after a deal is reached.
A slew of rivals are preparing campaigns for the moment when Mrs May does step down as leader.
Mr Johnson tops the grassroots rankings on 23 per cent, ahead of Michael Gove on 14 per cent, Jeremy Hunt on 12 per cent, Sajid Javid on 11 per cent and Dominic Raab on 9 per cent.
But if Mr Farage is included as an option for Tory leader, he would beat everyone on the list except Mr Johnson, who is on 19 per cent to Mr Farage’s 15 per cent..
The six-month Brexit extension granted to Mrs May has infuriated the Tory grassroots. Of the councillors questioned in our poll, 64 per cent voted Leave in 2016.
Survation founder Damian Lyons Lowe said: ‘Conservative councillors are an influential and important indicator of the party’s support.
‘Out of those who will cast a vote, almost half will not vote Conservative, underlining the deep divisions over Europe and the difficulty the party will have in getting out the vote for the forthcoming elections’.
Survation questioned 781 Conservative councillors between April 17 and 19.
‘Our party is dead. Brexit is killing us on the doorstep’
THE Mail on Sunday’s Survation Poll is devastating news for the Conservative Party and for the Prime Minister. It shows a frightening collapse in Tory support and a surge for Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party in voting intentions for the planned European elections.
It also shows a genuine disillusion with the party and its leadership. Gone are the days when David Cameron was able to dismiss Mr Farage’s supporters as ‘fruitcakes’. Mr Farage might reasonably ask who the fruitcakes are now.
It is hard to think of a time when the core of Tory supporters were so alienated from their party and their leader.
It is hard to believe that the damage done to the Conservatives by the Government’s bungling of Brexit can ever be wholly undone. Yet it must be, for the sake of the country.
This demoralisation is completely understandable. The fact it affects those who are normally most loyal is actually not surprising. The Tory Party has not been straight with its supporters. It has not done what it said it would do. The Brexit Party is scoring well because it says what it means and means what it says. Tories should try this simple formula.
Both wings of the Tory Party have played silly games when they should have been fighting for the future of the country.
Parliament’s brief Easter recess has silenced the silliness for a few days, but it has not healed the deep wounds inflicted by delay and failure.
Nor has it diminished the grave mistake made by Theresa May when she went into talks with Labour over an EU deal. Yet, bad as things are, there is still work to be done, and duty must come before everything.
The country must leave the EU, as soon as it can practicably be achieved. A change of leader and all that it would entail will solve nothing until that deceptively simple task has been completed. MPs who have been indulging themselves have now had their warning.
If they do not stop their selfindulgence, they face spending the remainder of their blasted political careers in powerless opposition to a Corbyn government. This has been obvious to most people in the country for months. Let us hope it is now obvious to Tory MPs as well.
They do not have long to save themselves.
Laughing in the face of the law
THEY came to ‘celebrate’ their drug of choice – and to laugh in the face of the law.
As hundreds gathered to brazenly smoke cannabis in front of families enjoying an Easter day out yesterday, all police seemed able to do was hand out warning letters to ‘offenders’. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. Figures show 540 people a month caught with cannabis are being let off with soft-touch warnings instead of prosecution.
This cannot be right. Those flouting the law yesterday should have been arrested. The law should be upheld, otherwise it is rendered meaningless.
Supporters of the legalisation of cannabis insist it is relatively harmless. But that argument grows ever weaker.
Research into the effects of potent strains of cannabis draws a link between habitual use and the risk of developing mental health problems.
Not only does cannabis pose serious risks to users, but the criminal enterprises that produce and sell it are often responsible for trafficking people to run ‘farms’ for them.
When police ignore the possession and use of this dangerous illegal drug, they – and the politicians who back them – are turning a blind eye to an illegal practice that destroys lives.