Britain at crossroads as eve-of-poll survey suggests May heading for landslide victory

The BMG poll of 1,000 adults, conducted over the last two days, places the Conservatives on 46 per cent, Labour on 33, the Liberal Democrats on eight, Ukip on five, the SNP on four, the Greens on three, and both Plaid Cymru and others on one.

Such a result would give the Tories 380 seats, up 49 from 2015, compared to Labour's 190, a loss of 42 seats. This would represent the Conservatives’ best performance since 1983 and Labour’s worst since the Second World War.

The SNP would take 55 seats, just one less than two years ago, while the Lib Dems would have five, down three from the eight they won in 2015.

Meantime, other polls in the last 24 hours painted a similar picture.

A ComRes survey gave the Conservatives a 10-point lead over Labour – 44 to 34 – while an ICM snapshot gave them a 12-point lead – 46 to 34.

Andrew Hawkins, ComRes’s Chairman, said: “The Conservative lead was sealed when Theresa May secured support from around half of Ukip’s 2015 voters, worth almost two million votes, or six percentage points. Despite Mrs May’s ratings taking a hit during the campaign, older voters in particular have stuck with her party and it appears that the electoral gamble is about to pay off.”

After a seven-week campaign, that saw unexpected twists, turns and tragedies, party leaders used a final day of frenetic campaigning to convince undecided voters to opt for their vision.

The Prime Minister, who travelled from London to Norwich to Birmingham, insisted Brexit was the “basis of everything" and in a last-ditch appeal said: “Today is a day for everybody across the country to fix their sights on the future and vote for a better future of fairness, security and opportunity for all. That is the future I want for Britain as we fulfil the promise of Brexit together."

Last night, she told Channel 4 News she was prepared to be "difficult" with European counterparts during the Brexit talks, saying she had been very clear about her objectives while saying Jeremy Corbyn had had “seven different plans in nine months".

But Nicola Sturgeon claimed Mrs May had to be regretting her "arrogant" decision to call a snap election, believing she would "cruise to a landslide victory".

At a campaign rally in Edinburgh, the First Minister said: "She arrogantly thought that all she had to do in this campaign was say 'strong and stable' over and over again and that she would steamroller everyone aside, crush the opposition and cruise to a landslide victory. Well, I bet that she's regretting that now."

The SNP leader accused the PM of being "weak and evasive" and appealed to Labour and Liberal Democrat voters to turn to her party to stop the Conservatives from getting a big victory. "Scotland's voice could be decisive," she declared.

Mr Corbyn began a day of criss-crossing the country in Glasgow, where he told a crowd of cheering supporters in Buchanan Street: "They underestimated us didn't they? They underestimated the good sense of ordinary people, ordinary people all over Britain."

He said the choice facing Britain had never been clearer; it was between “another five years of a Tory government, underfunding of services all across the UK, including here in Scotland, or a Labour government that invests for all, all across Britain”.

After a whistle-stop tour of four Tory marginal in Cheshire, the Labour leader, addressing his final campaign stop on his home ground of Islington, said voters had the power to make sure the country was “run in the interests of the majority, not the political and corporate elites”.

He also said that people, by exercising their democratic right today, could send a powerful message to those who supported the terrorists, who struck in Manchester and London. “We can honour the victims of these atrocities tomorrow by voting, by showing democracy will never be cowed by terror and that hope can triumph over fear.”

Earlier, Mr Corbyn temporarily replaced Diane Abbott as Shadow Home Secretary after she quit the campaign due to an undisclosed illness. Lyn Brown, the Shadow Policing Minister, who last year quit the frontbench in protest at Mr Corbyn’s leadership, has taken up the role.

Ms Abbott, who stumbled in a recent TV interview on the issue of counter-terrorism and pulled out of a BBC Radio Woman’s Hour debate, broke her silence to say: "Touched by all the messages of support. Still standing! Will rejoin the fray soon. Vote Labour!"

At Holyrood, the row over Ms Sturgeon’s claim that Kezia Dugdale had told her, following the Brexit vote, that she would drop her party’s opposition to a second independence poll, rumbled on.

The Scottish Labour leader, who has branded the claim a “categoric lie,” told MSPs it showed the FM would “say anything to deflect from the SNP's appalling record in office”.

But Ms Sturgeon hit back, insisting she stood by her claim “100 per cent”.

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, described her SNP counterpart, who made the bombshell claim in a live TV leaders' debate on Tuesday, as a "clype".

Elsewhere, new figures showed that trade union cash has helped Labour raise more than £1 million in a week as polling day neared but the Conservatives continued to collect more from donors.

Electoral Commission data shows, in the period from May 24 to May 30, the Conservatives received £1.15m from those donors contributing more than £7,500, the threshold at which they must be reported, while Labour collected £1.04m.

Donations to the Conservatives over the four-week period totalled almost £10.9m, far outstripping the £4.5m given to Labour.