Former home secretary Suella Braverman has urged the Conservative Party to “read the writing on the wall” and “prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition”.
Polls suggest Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is set for a big victory in Thursday’s General Election, and it is forecast to win more seats than it did in 1997.
Survation pollsters quizzed 34,558 respondents online and by phone and have said a Labour landslide of more than 418 seats – the number the party took under Tony Blair’s leadership 27 years ago – is “99% certain”.
Writing in The Telegraph, Ms Braverman said victory should no longer be the goal for the Tories.
“Thursday’s vote is now all about forming a strong enough opposition,” she wrote.
“One needs to read the writing on the wall: it’s over, and we need to prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition.”
Ms Braverman blamed the situation on a fracture within the Conservative Party resulting from a rise in Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
She said: “It is notable that Labour’s vote share has not markedly increased in recent weeks, but our vote is evaporating from both Left and Right.
“The critics will cite Boris (Johnson), Liz (Truss), Rwanda, and, I can immodestly predict, even me as all being fatal to our ‘centrist’ vote.
“The reality is rather different: we are haemorrhaging votes largely to Reform. Why? Because we failed to cut immigration or tax or deal with the net zero and woke policies we have presided over for 14 years.
“We may lose hundreds of excellent MPs because of our abject inability to have foreseen this inevitability months ago: that our failure to unite the Right would destroy us.”
Ms Braverman said the Tories need “a searingly honest post-match analysis”, “because the fight for the soul of the Conservative Party will determine whether we allow Starmer a clear run at destroying our country for good or having a chance to redeem it in due course.
“Indeed, it will decide whether our party continues to exist at all.”
