These days there's no safe ground for a Conservative campaigner.

An undelivered Brexit makes for bleak local election terrain, and that's before we even get to the European elections on 23 May.

A week out from polling day and chairman Brandon Lewis is out knocking on doors in Yate, near Bristol.

:: Listen to the Sophy Ridge on Sunday podcast on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker.

This is soft Leave territory - 53% of voters in this South Gloucestershire constituency voted to leave - and one of the very few places that swung to the Conservatives in the 2017 snap election.


It has a very different feel to the hard Brexit country the Tories targeted in the wake of the 2016 EU referendum - Coventry, Chester, Wolverhampton, Wirral West.

In the last set of local elections in 2018, Mr Lewis took me for on a visit to Dudley, where the Tories were trying to win control of a council they hadn't held for 14 years.

Image: Brandon Lewis took Sky News out to knock on doors in Yate, near Bristol

The Conservatives didn't quite win that council, but it did take it out of Labour's hands and into no overall control, picking up six seats on the back of UKIP's collapse.

But the days in which the Tories could try and flex their Brexit credentials to turn Labour, or UKIP-backing Vote Leave areas blue, are over.

We are now touring territory the Tories are trying to defend rather than seats they are trying to win.

This is a defensive play in a set of elections in which the Tories are defending a high watermark from the 2015 local poll, when they gained more than 500 seats.

Nearly 60% of the 8,425 seats up for grabs across 248 councils next week are Conservative, with a quarter held by Labour.

But it is equally true that the party is fighting these local elections in the worst possible of circumstances.

Because for all the chat on the doorstep about the local park-and-ride, bin collections and pot holes, the theme of Brexit betrayal is never far from the surface as we tour the small bungalows of retirees in Yate.

And the sentiment from those we canvass on the doorstep, and those who I interview in a local cafe, is one of frustration and disillusionment.

One gentleman tells me he thinks people won't bother to vote in the upcoming local elections because they are so fed up about Brexit and "being lied to".

Image: A common theme among voters was the feeling they had been 'betrayed' over Brexit

Another lady tells me that she thinks the Tories will be punished at the ballot box for failing to get on with Brexit or anything much else.

An elderly gentleman, chatting to Mr Lewis on his doorstep, tells us that he isn't going to vote Conservative this time around as he lays into former prime minister David Cameron for calling a referendum and then quitting the scene to let others sort it out.

Brexit, he says, is giving his wife tremendous headaches.

It is poised to hurt the Tories too, who are facing both the local elections and a national poll - the EU elections - in the coming for weeks.

Theresa May's decision to delay Brexit again earlier this month means the UK is now poised to fight the EU elections on 23 May - to the fury of party members and voters.

Nigel Farage's new Brexit Party is already topping polls ahead of next month's EU elections with 27% of the vote.

The Tories are in third position, behind Labour, with 15% of the vote as supporters jump ship in protest at Mrs May's "Brexit betrayal".

The spectre of the Tories being trounced a month from now in a national election by their old nemesis is not just demoralising for local activists and MPs, but frightening.

Image: Brandon Lewis said he was hopeful the Withdrawal Agreement Bill could be brought back to parliament

The failure to deliver on a referendum that three years ago stopped Mr Farage in his tracks has now brought him back to life with a vengeance.

Many Conservative Party members are vowing to neither vote for the Tories in the EU elections nor campaign for them.

A ConHome poll of grassroots members this week revealed that 62% of party members intend to vote for the Brexit Party, with less than one in four respondents opting to vote for their own party.

Mr Lewis says he's an optimist and thinks the UK still has a chance of avoiding holding the poll by passing a Brexit deal through parliament before 23 May.

"If parliament can look at making sure they are delivering on the referendum, there is still time and the potential to avoid fighting these elections," he tells me.

"But parliament has got to come together and agree it is going to vote to leave the EU."

He is also working on a plan B - holding elections for new MEPs three years after the UK voted to leave.

"I make no apologies for the fact as chairman of the Conservative Party I have also got to make sure we are prepared for any elections.

The Brexit deadlock - not local elections - is on the minds of Conservative voters

"If we have those European elections, we have selected our candidates and we will be prepared and we will fight them."

Having to contest these elections will be disastrous for Mrs May's Conservatives who have been scrambling around to try to avoid the poll on 23 May.

But many of her advisers and ministers are quietly resigned to holding these elections as hopes fade of getting a Brexit deal through parliament.

The prime minister wants to ask MPs to vote on the key piece of legislation to take the UK out of the European Union as she tries to shoehorn Brexit through, but has dropped a plan to introduce it to parliament next week.

However, Mr Lewis suggested its return was still very much on the cards in the coming days.

He told Sky News he was hopeful the government will be able to bring the Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB), which enshrines Mrs May's Brexit plan into UK law back to parliament to avoid the EU elections.

Those familiar with No 10's thinking told Sky News the government would load the WAB with trinkets for different parliamentary factions in order to have at least a glimmer of hope that it might pass through the second reading.

Image: A Tory campaigner tries to deliver a leaflet to a pensioner

Two sources told us that the government is planning to add reassurances on workers' rights into the domestic legislation in order to try to win support from Labour MPs representing leave seats such as Rosie Cooper, Lisa Nandy and Gareth Snell.

One Conservative source said that there were 22 Labour MPs in this grouping who might vote for the WAB if the reassurances were baked into the bill.

Downing Street is also planning to add reassurances on the use of alternative technological solutions to solve the Irish border questions in the hope it will convince some of the European Research Group Brexiteers to vote for the deal.

"There is a way you can get this through," said one senior source.

But first the Tories have to get the local elections out of the way.

Voters will get a chance to mete out their punishment not once, but twice, at the ballot box next month.

The Conservatives are bracing for dismal results, and perhaps the end of May.

:: Listen to the All Out Politics podcast on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker