Kemi Badenoch will not “chase Reform to the right” despite claims from Nigel Farage that his party is now the official opposition. Mrs Badenoch is under intense pressure after her party suffered a historic defeat in Thursday’s local election.

She is facing grumbling from backbench MPs who say she needs to set out a radical change of course within weeks to save her job. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, has been touted by some MPs as a possible replacement but has publicly backed Mrs Badenoch’s leadership. Conservative strategists insist the party will resist calls to match Mr Farage’s policies for fear of political collapse in the style of right-wing parties in Australia and Canada.

Mr Farage, writing in The Telegraph, said the Tories “will never recover” from their historic defeat at his hands.

A Conservative strategist told the paper: “This week we’ve seen some of the global right’s biggest long-term hopes in Canada’s Pierre Poilievre and Australia’s Peter Dutton not just lose, but even lose their seats in the process.

“This shows the danger of chasing populist parties like Reform to the right. Kemi wants to ensure the Conservatives don’t suffer the same fate by taking her time and basing the offer on principles, not what looks superficially popular.”

Mr Dutton, who leads the Right-wing Liberal Party of Australia, suffered an unexpected defeat at the hands of socialist Labor in Friday’s election.

Canada’s Conservatives, led by Mr Poilievre, surrendered a massive 27-point lead in the polls to lose last week’s general election to the Liberals.

The party had long been seen as a shoo-in to form the next government, but was hit by a huge voter backlash against Donald Trump’s trade tariffs.

A senior Tory spokesman said Mrs Badenoch was not “underestimating the scale of the renewal required” and urged MPs not to descend into infighting.

“Kemi will show the same energy she has displayed in the local campaign - visiting every single county with elections at least once, and some more than three times - as she seeks to win back lost seats,” he said.

“The Tories knew these would be a tough set of results, but they have also shown the sheer scale of contempt for Starmer and this failing Labour Government.

“This is an opportunity the Conservatives now must not miss by turning in on ourselves.”

The spokesman said that the party’s dire election results had “woken up a lot of donors and supporters” to the electoral threat posed by Reform.

It is understood that the Tories have received more than £500,000 in new donations since Thursday, swelling their coffers at a critical time.

Mrs Badenoch is also expected to respond to the defeat at the hands of Reform with a series of new policy announcements over the coming weeks.

She will start this week by challenging Labour to toughen up online safety laws, raising the minimum age of access for social media sites from 13 to 16.

The Tory leader is also readying an offensive on crime, amid expectations that Labour will announce it is scrapping shorter jail terms to free up prison space.

But support among a number of Conservative MPs was ebbing on Saturday, with some accusing her of failing to communicate a vision to voters.

Sir Edward Leigh, the Father of the House, said the Tories needed to take on Reform by being as “tough” as Mr Farage on immigration and net zero.

He said: “It must be obvious to everybody now that we’ve got to do what the people want and have policies on net zero and immigration which are just as tough as Reform.

“And sooner or later, before the election, we’ve got to have an electoral alliance with them, otherwise we’ll let Labour in the game. I think they’re the views of many Tory MPs.”

Sir Edward backed Mrs Badenoch to carry on, saying the party should concentrate on its policy offer and “there’s no point having endless leadership elections”.

But other Tory MPs said the local election results showed that she should resign.

“I think the leader needs to go, I think she’s lost the plot. She’s not good enough and I think the people around her aren’t good enough either,” one said.

Lord Maude, a former chairman, said the party was “a phoenix, not a dodo” and would rise from the ashes “sooner than” people think under her leadership.

He said she must resist the “siren voices” urging her to “cosy up to Reform”, saying it was unrealistic to expect voters to have forgiven the Tories so quickly.

“There is no substitute for showing ourselves to be once again considered, thoughtful, competent and principled,” he wrote in The Telegraph.

Meanwhile, Mr Farage said there was “now a widespread acceptance that Reform UK has supplanted the Conservatives as the real opposition to Labour”.

He said that “we now live in a new political age” and “the lesson for future elections is simple - if you vote Conservative, you will get Labour”.

“The party that I lead is expanding. As we march on, the Conservatives are in retreat. In my opinion, they will never recover,” he added.