The Conservative Party is on track to lose nearly 550 seats in the local elections, new polling has revealed.
Electoral Calculus research, conducted with Find Out Now, shows Labour is on track for one of its best performances since Sir Tony Blair led the party in the 1990s.
The Tories are expected to retain just under 980 council seats, a fall of 548, with Labour gaining more than 800.
Key councils such as Wandsworth and Westminster could also fall into the hands of the Labour Party, as well as Barnet, Southampton, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Thurrock.
Martin Baxter, the chief executive of Electoral Calculus said: “The renewed ‘partygate’ focus has made a poor situation for the Conservatives even worse by persuading even more Conservative supporters not to turn out at the local elections.
“The results could now be bad for Boris Johnson, especially if the Conservatives lose many hundreds of council seats and key flagship councils like Wandsworth or Westminster.”
It would be the first time since 1996, when Sir Tony led the Labour party and John Major was prime minister, that Labour would have won more than three times as many council seats as the Conservatives.
The predicted vote share of 24 per cent for the Tories, 39 per cent for Labour and 15 per cent for the Liberal Democrats – giving Labour a lead of 15 per cent – would be the largest in local elections since the mid-nineties, before Sir Tony’s landslide victory in 1997.
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