Rishi Sunak has admitted the Tories might not win the general election in the wake of the party’s brutal drubbing in council and mayoral contests.
The Prime Minister claimed Britain is heading for a hung parliament when he sends the country to the polls, as he warned about the ‘disaster’ of a Labour-led coalition.
A calamitous set of local elections saw the Conservatives lose almost 500 seats and all-but-one elected mayor, which has sparked a fresh battle in the Tory civil war.
Mr Sunak also saw the Tories lose the Blackpool South parliamentary by-election to Labour, with his party only narrowly beating third-placed Reform UK.
The PM conceded it had been ‘bitterly disappointing’ for his party, but seized on an analysis of council resuts that suggested Labour would miss out on a House of Commons majority.
‘These results suggest we are heading for a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party,’ he told The Times.
‘Keir Starmer propped up in Downing Street by the SNP, Liberal Democrats and the Greens would be a disaster for Britain.
‘The country doesn’t need more political horse trading, but action. We are the only party that has a plan to deliver on the priorities of the people.’
Rishi Sunak has admitted the Tories might not win the general election in the wake of the party’s brutal drubbing in council and mayoral contests
The PM claimed Britain is heading for a hung parliament, as he warned Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer is plotting a coalition with the SNP, Lib Dems and Greens
Professor Michael Thrasher, a leading elections expert, said analysis of the results of Thursday’s council contest showed Labour as the largest party in Westminster but short of an overall majority.
A study of two million council wards for Sky News projected those voting figures into a nationwide estimate, with Labour leading the Tories by nine percentage points.
The analysis suggested Labour would be left 32 seats short of a majority at a general election.
But the study raised eyebrows as it flies in the face of the massive lead Labour has in almost all Westminster voting intention polls.
It was pointed out that people often vote differently in local and national elections, and there were no council contests in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland on Thursday.
Health minister Maria Caulfield this morning repeated the PM’s claim that Britain is on course for a hung Parliament.
She also claimed Tory voters who stayed at home for last week’s local elections would back the Government at the general election.
‘It’s always difficult when you’ve been in Government and voters can send a message to a party in Government that they’re unhappy about certain things with the safe knowledge that they still have a Conservative Government in control,’ she told Sky News.
‘It’s very different come a general election where they really do have to make a choice.
‘If you look at Blackpool South, for example, the vast majority of our voters that voted for us in 2019 stayed at home, they didn’t switch to Labour.
‘They didn’t switch to Reform. They stayed at home and that shows that they haven’t really been tempted by other parties.’
Labour sought to dispel suggestions it would consider a coalition with the SNP after the general election.
Pat McFadden, the party’s national campaign co-ordinator, said: ‘Our aim is to win a majority, to govern, to meet the mood for change, and we’re not planning any alliances or pacts with anyone.’
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Former home secretary Suella Braverman urged Mr Sunak to change course rightwards to win back voters in the wake of the local election results.
But she said a change of leadership was not a ‘feasible prospect’, adding: ‘There is no superman or superwoman out there who can do it.’
Among the measures Ms Braverman has urged the PM to adopt to win back voters are further tax cuts and a cap on legal migration.
Tory grandee Sir John Hayes signalled Mr Sunak should reshuffle his Cabinet, with his close ally Ms Braverman as a voice at the table for what he called the ‘authentic Tory part of the Conservative Party’.
But Conservative moderates warned against Mr Sunak lurching rightwards, with defeated West Midlands mayor Andy Street claiming after his loss that ‘winning from that centre ground is what happens’.
Damian Green, chairman of the One Nation Group of Tory moderates, made a similar plea on the BBC’s Westminster Hour.
‘I would just observe the seats that we have lost in the past few days – we lost to parties to the left of us. So I think suggesting that what we need to do is to move to the right is irrational in the face of the electorate,’ he said.
Ben Page, chief executive of polling company Ipsos, told Times Radio that Mr Sunak’s prediction the UK is headed for a hung parliament is ‘for the birds’.
‘I think it’s for the birds, to be honest, at the moment,’ he said.
‘If you look at the swing in Blackpool South, 30 per cent or so, you look at these local election results, which we haven’t seen anything of this kind since just before Labour won a landslide in 1997.
‘And finally, you look at Keir Starmer, and Keir Starmer isn’t particularly popular, but it’s always compared to what, if you look at how people rate Keir Starmer as best possible candidate for being prime minister with Rishi Sunak, he’s got double the score of Rishi Sunak.’
