THERESA May is coming under pressure to call an early general election given the Conservatives’ growing opinion poll dominance over a divided Labour Party.

Two polls this week have given the Tories significant leads of 12 and 16 points. One snapshot suggested that as many as 29 per cent of those who voted Labour at last year’s general election now preferred Mrs May as Prime Minister to Jeremy Corbyn.

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The Labour leader has previously indicated his Tory counterpart needed her own mandate after winning the contest to succeed David Cameron by default because her only rival, Andrea Leadsom, dramatically withdrew from the contest.

Moreover at Westminster, some opponents to Mr Corbyn within the parliamentary Labour party believe that losing a snap poll could be the only way of displacing the Islington MP from the leadership given that many expect him to win the second contest for the Labour crown in a year.

To bring about an early election, two-thirds of MPs would have to vote to curtail the five-year parliament as set out in the 2011 Fixed Term Parliaments Act.

After entering No 10, Mrs May made clear she was not minded to call an early election because it would only add instability to the Brexit process. However, some Tory colleagues believe that, given Labour's current weakness, she could, in an early election, turn the Conservatives' current nominal majority of just 12 into one over 100.

Ed Costelloe, who chairs the Grassroots Conservatives, suggested Mrs May would "win big time" in an early poll and that activists would back an election shortly after the completion of the Labour leadership contest on September 24.

He told the Daily Telegraph: “All Conservative supporters are interested in increasing our majority. When it comes to the Labour party, everything is to play for.

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"Once their leadership contest is out of the way, there's a very strong likelihood that there would be a strong incentive for Theresa May to trigger a contest on the basis of opinion polls and feedback from the grassroots telling her to go for it because we will win big time.”

He added: "If the opportunity was there to get rid of this small majority and be able to govern untroubled, party members would be very excited by it. Not right now, but later in the year or early next year it could well be the right time."