LONDON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Britain's governing Conservative Party might lose up to 500 seats in next month's elections in English towns and cities, two leading experts predicted Sunday.
Political commentators have warned the losses will be the price to be paid by the party over Prime Minister Theresa May's handling of Brexit negotiations.
Elections experts -- Professor Colin Rallings and Professor Michael Thrasher, associate members of the University of Oxford's Nuffield College -- said the collapse of support for May's party could even be much worse if recent opinion polls turn out to be accurate.
Around 8,400 town and city hall seats in 248 councils will be contested in the May 2 election, with a further six contests for directly elected mayors.
The two experts, writing in the Sunday Times, said the main opposition Labour Party could make about 150 gains in the local elections with the Conservatives suffering more than 400 net losses. The real winners would be the Liberal Democrats who could seize back most of the 400 seats they lost four years ago, largely at the expense of the Conservatives.
Rallings and Thrasher added that nothing can be certain in the current political atmosphere in Britain, saying some polls suggest Conservative support has dipped below 30 percent.
"The party must brace itself for even bigger losses. A six-point swing to Labour, implied by polling putting the Conservatives on 28 percent and Labour on 36 percent, could yield more than 1,000 Conservative losses and 800 Labour gains, sufficient to put huge pressure on the leadership," they warned.
Labour Party currently controls 30 of the 36 metropolitan boroughs, mainly in and around big cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool, with a chance to gain control in several more on May 2, while the so-called shire counties have long been an electoral desert for Labour.
Rallings and Thrasher said the forthcoming local elections will define the context in which a campaign is fought three weeks later if Britain has to vote to elect representatives to the European Parliament.
Leading Conservative associations have warned there is little passion among grass-roots supporters to campaign in elections to chose new members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to serve in Brussels.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, International Trade Secretary Liam Fox said the EU will end up with 50 "disruptive and resentful" British MEPs if it forces the country to take part in European elections.
MPs will return to the House of Commons Tuesday after their Easter recess with a schedule for Brexit-related debates or votes yet to be decided.
Negotiating groups, led by Cabinet Minister David Lidington and Labour's shadow Brexit Secretary Keir Starmer, are expected to meet early this week in the mission to seek a consensus Brexit deal that would win parliamentary support.
A Downing Street spokesperson said Sunday there has been continued dialogue and exchanges of documents during the recess ahead of formal talks to be resumed when Parliament returns this week.
May has said Britain could avoid taking part in EU elections if a Brexit deal is achieved quickly, paving the way for Britain's early departure from the bloc.
The EU Council has extended Britain's membership until the end of October to give more time to agree on a deal, but it has insisted that Britain has to elect MEPs.
