Nigel Farage has said the Tory Party is “utterly terrified” of him after a brutal warning was delivered by a former adviser to Rishi Sunak.
Will Dry, who ran the Prime Minister’s internal polling unit at No. 10, quit before Christmas “after steadily becoming more dispirited”.
The departure made headlines last night, after it emerged Mr Dry has now joined the Conservative Britain Alliance, the Lord Frost-affiliated group appearing to undermine Rishi Sunak.
The backstabbing sparked Westminster’s interest and drew parallels to Dominic Cummings’s betrayal of Boris Johnson.
In a statement released to the media by Mr Dry last night, he concluded that the Tories “are heading for the most almighty of defeats”.
He said: “Be in no doubt: we are on course for at least a decade of Labour rule.”
He ominously added: “If Farage comes back, the Conservative Party essentially won’t exist by Christmas.”
Mr Farage has now responded to Mr Dry’s warning, observing that the Tories “seem to be utterly terrified of me”.
He added: “They have no one to blame but themselves.”
Mr Farage is yet to confirm whether he will return to frontline politics, though the current state of the Conservative Party suggests he would struggle to resist the allure.
Earlier this month Mr Dry’s new employer, the Conservative Britain Alliance, conducted a mega-poll suggesting the Tories are on course for an electoral wipe-out.
It also revealed that while Mr Farage’s Reform Party, of which he is Honorary President, won’t win any seats, its 10 percent polling could be the difference between a Labour minority government, and a Labour majority of 120.
The poll also suggested that Mr Farage could win a seat by 10 points if he stood in the Essex seaside constituency of Clacton.
Clacton is the only constituency to have elected a UKIP MP at a general election, Douglas Carswell in 2015.
Mr Dry’s survey found Mr Farage would pick up 37 percent of the vote, compared to the Tory incumbent’s 27 percent.
Mr Sunak’s former adviser has been on a confusing political journey, first coming to prominence during the heated Brexit years under Theresa May as a campaigner in favour of a second referendum.
His resignation statement said he is now working with others “to alert the Conservative Party to the danger the country and it is in”.
He said: “Those who think we can’t do much better than this are dead wrong.
“Those who think the public don’t want much better than this are also dead wrong.”
