'Destroy Labour' Britain's Conservatives given election orders

No talk of opinion polls and definitely no boasting - Britain's governing Conservative Party is under strict orders before a June election which it hopes will "destroy" the opposition.

The Conservatives, once criticised by Prime Minister Theresa May for being called the "nasty party", won seats from left-wing parties and from the right in local elections this month by capitalising on the opposition Labour Party's divisions to appeal to their working-class voters and Brexit supporters.

The elections to local councils and a handful of mayoral positions were a dry run for the June 8 parliamentary election in which opinion polls suggest May's party is set to add dozens of additional seats, possibly reshaping the political landscape in Britain by ushering in years of Conservative rule.

The goal is nothing less than "to destroy Labour", one Conservative lawmaker said, by targeting the seats of up-and-coming opposition politicians to stunt its growth. This, the Conservatives say, would hand May the kind of commanding victory she needs to strengthen her hand in divorce talks with the EU.

But the message to Conservative lawmakers, members and activists is true to form for the risk-averse prime minister - do not take anything for granted. For her, the biggest electoral threat is not from other parties, but the risk of the Conservatives appearing over-confident.

"We must not be complacent and I am not complacent," May said just a week after she called the early election.

This month, after making gains in local elections, she told supporters: "I will not take anything for granted and neither will the team I lead, because there is too much at stake."

Opinion polls give the Conservatives around a 20-point lead over Labour, and the party won some seats traditionally supportive of the opposition party in the local elections.

They even won the mayoral contest in Tees Valley - part of Labour's heartlands in northeastern England, only one of two regions where Labour is ahead of the Conservatives but where May's party has reduced a wide gap to just two points.

"We're not allowed to talk about the polls, we've got to say they are notoriously unreliable," said the Conservative lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of explaining Conservative strategy.

"We are not allowed to crow."