Tories 'are about to be pulverised - but then they'll do Nigel Farage deal on his terms'

The Tories are on course to be “pulverised” on July 4, former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe has predicted.

And the ex-MP - who is now a member of Reform UK - believes her old party will have little choice but to do a deal with leader Nigel Farage after an inevitable election drubbing, in a move she believes can “realign the centre-right”.

Ms Widdecombe was speaking during a week in which Mr Farage has sought to pile the pressure on Rishi Sunak after the Prime Minister’s decision to skip a D-Day commemoration in Normandy the previous Friday.

The ex-Brexit Party MEP, who held several ministerial roles in the Government of former Tory Prime Minister Sir John Major, was unequivocal in her belief that the Conservative Party was on course to be “pulverised” on July 4.

With bookies offering short odds on key figures including Jeremy Hunt and Penny Mordaunt losing their seats, Ms Widdecombe told Express.co.uk: “A lot will depend on who survives, a lot will depend on that.

“But I imagine that after the defeat, they will have to they will have to do a deal with Reform.”

The ex-Brexit Party MEP, who held several ministerial roles in the Government of former Tory Prime Minister Sir John Major, said: “Otherwise we're just going to be there as a thorn in their side, so they will have to do business with us.”

There was little prospect of Mr Farage, who quit the Conservatives in 1992 in disgust at the Maastricht treaty, rejoining, Ms Widdecombe stressed.

She explained: “I think Reform will stay as Reform until there is a real advance somewhere in some sort of joint effort.

“But we will stay Reform. I mean, if we want to be what we were in our heyday then we want to realign the centre-right so that it becomes what it was in the heyday of the Conservatives.

“Never far right, merely centre-right.

"But centre-right is very different from centre-left, and that is what the Tory party has been now for a long time.”

Mr Farage has been boosted by a YouGov poll commissioned by The Times newspaper and published on Thursday which put Reform UK at 19 percent, with the Conservatives on 18 percent in voting intention, in what the former UKIP leader subsequently claimed was a “crossover moment”.

He told a press conference yesterday: "We are not going to get four million votes, we're not going to get five million votes, we're going to get a very, very substantial number of votes.

"I genuinely think we can get over six million votes. I don't know where the ceiling is."

Such a result would be significantly more than the 3.9 million votes UKIP received under his leadership in 2015, amounting to 12.6 percent of the vote.

Mr Sunak struck a defiant note when speaking to reporters during a press conference at the G7 leaders' summit in Italy, also yesterday.

He said: "I think we're only halfway through this campaign and the Conservative Party and me are going to fight for every single vote until the last day.

"And you know, what you saw this week was actually an important moment in the campaign because the only poll that matters is the one on July 4.

"What you did see this week is the two leading parties put out their manifestos for the future of our country, and there's a very clear choice."

He added: "What I would say is if that poll and all these things were replicated on election day, what that would be is handing a blank cheque to Keir Starmer to increase people's taxes on their home, their car, their job, their pension, their house, that's what it will do.”