Ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman says Rishi Sunak must urgently change course to stand any chance of winning the general election.
It comes after a bruising local election for the Tories that saw Labour make gains across England and Wales in key battlegrounds.
Braverman, who has been a critic of the Prime Minister, told GB News it is now too late to change leader, but urged him to make radical changes.
“There’s no time to change leader”, she said.
Suella Braverman says it's 'too late' to change PM
POOL / GB NEWS
“The Prime Minister is going to be leading us into the next general election whether we like it or not.
“What he needs to do to salvage this dire situation is to accept the enormity of the problem, these terrible results, and quickly and urgently change course.
Keir Starmer has heralded the results
PA
Rishi Sunak has a crisis on his handsPA“He needs to make sure that there are meaningful tax cuts that people can feel and benefit from, put a cap on legal migration, leave the ECHR so we stop the boats, and reclaim our streets back from the extremists.
“Those are just a flavour of the things that he should be doing, but we need big, we need bold, we need strong leadership and strong communication of those policies to convince those Conservative supporters that there’s a good reason to vote for us again.”
The Prime Minister has urged his party to stick with his leadership and plan for Government.
He said: “It’s been disappointing of course to lose dedicated Conservative councillors and Andy Street in the West Midlands, with his track record of providing great public services and attracting significant investment to the area, but that has redoubled my resolve to continue to make progress on our plan.”
Results are in from 106 of the 107 councils in England that held elections on May 2 and they show Labour has won 1,140 seats, an increase of more than 200.
The Liberal Democrats beat the Tories into second place, winning 521 seats, up nearly 100.
The Tories are just behind on 513 seats, down nearly 400.
The change in seats is the difference in the number of councillors compared with the state of the parties just before election day.
The mayoral elections provided little respite for the Tories, with Labour dominating across England.
They won in Liverpool, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and in Greater Manchester, where Andy Burnham returned to power.