Kemi Badenoch is set to face a leadership challenge following the local elections, when it is expected the Tories will be largely swept out from councils up and down the country. This morning it has been revealed plotters are preparing to “get her out sharpish” following the May ballot, where the Tories are on course to lose hundreds of local councillors.

The county council and mayor elections, taking place across Britain, will see the Conservatives’ electoral showing significantly down from the last time the same wards went to the polls in 2021 when Boris Johnson was experiencing record-high popularity and won over 60% of seats up for election. While Labour’s popularity has tanked nationally since the general election last year, it will be Kemi Badenoch struggling to spin May’s results as anything other than a disaster. This morning, the Sunday Times reported that a political operator involved in the plot to remove Ms Badenoch as Tory leader has drawn up a media “grid” of attacks to “make the Tory leader’s life difficult after May”.

Another plotter promised: “We’ll get her out sharpish.”

“More and more MPs realise she’s doomed. A grid is coming together to bury her in disaster from the locals, keep the pressure on, then f*** [up] conference.”

Ms Badenoch’s life will be made more difficult by the surprise uniting of Nigel Farage and Dominic Cummings, who the Times reveals met before Christmas in a top-secret meeting.

Despite falling out during the Brexit referendum, when Mr Cummings believed the then-UKIP leader was a toxic presence who would lose the campaign support, the pair now find themselves as fellow travellers in trying to upend British politics and destroy the Tory party.

The paper reports that their conversation focused on how to win power, how to take on the civil service, and what lessons the right in Britain can learn from Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

However, a friend of Mr Cummings said: “Neither side discussed Dom working for Reform”.

Last month, Mr Cummings – who served as Boris Johnson’s chief of staff in Downing Street – publicly called on voters to back Reform at the local elections in order to remove Ms Badenoch as Tory leader.

He publicly set out his plan on his Substack blog: “Shove out Kemi ASAP, take over Tories, get Trump/Elon to facilitate a merger with Reform”.

He branded the Tories as “dead in every way” and said voters should back Farage in order to “help start the avalanche” that will remove Ms Badenoch from the top Tory job.

Despite Labour’s unpopularity, the Tories have been struggling to build support since their general election wipeout last year.

Most polls since the start of the year have put the Conservatives in third place, or at a three-way tie with Reform and Labour.

This is leading some Tories to begin seriously considering the need for an electoral pact with Nigel Farage in order to crush Labour, something they now doubt they can do on their own.

A new ‘Unite the Right’ campaign suggests the Tories and Reform should copy the model of the centre-right party in Germany, which campaigns as two different entities in different parts of the country, but unite in parliament.

A former Tory advisor explained: “Tories and Reform should become the CDU-CSU. Tories in the south, Reform in the north.”

Reform sources insist they have no interest in a pact, which would only save the Tories from oblivion.