Ex-Cabinet minister Lord David Frost today told his fellow Tories they are being 'far too positive' as he warned the party: 'We're on the edge of ceasing to exist.'The Conservative peer, the UK's former chief Brexit negotiator, attacked the 'torpor' of the party under Kemi Badenoch's leadership.He said the Tories were in a 'terrible mess' and an 'appalling situation' as they continue to lag behind both Reform UK and Labour in opinion polls.'Everything is getting worse and it has done so consistently since November last year, he said, as Mrs Badenoch prepares to mark her one-year anniversary as Tory leader. Mrs Badenoch's first 11 months in charge have seen a steady stream of defections from the Conservatives to Reform.Lord Frost, who backed Robert Jenrick in last year's Tory leadership contest, has often been touted as a possible switcher to Nigel Farage's party.Earlier this year, he said he was 'not emotionally committed to the Conservatives' as he declined to rule out standing for Reform in the future.Lord Frost has also lavished praise on Danny Kruger, the former Tory MP who joined Mr Farage's outfit last month.He spoke out as a new poll showed half of Conservative members thought Mrs Badenoch should not lead the party into the next general election.The YouGov survey found 46 per cent thought Mrs Badenoch should stay in charge when the country next goes to the polls, while 50 per cent thought she shouldn't.The poll of more than 650 Tory members, conducted between 26 September and 2 October, also showed 64 per cent supported an electoral pact with Reform.Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative MP for Romford and a shadow foreign minister, on Monday urged his party to work with Reform to avoid the 'calamity' of another Labour government. Ex-Cabinet minister Lord David Frost told his fellow Tories they are being 'far too positive' as he warned the party: 'We're on the edge of ceasing to exist.' Lord Frost, who backed Robert Jenrick in last year's Tory leadership contest, has often been touted as a possible switcher to Nigel Farage's Reform UK A YouGov survey found half of Conservative members thought Kemi Badenoch should not lead the party into the next general election'Our electoral system can't accommodate two parties that are broadly conservative,' Mr Rosindell told GB News. His comments came as Lord Frost used a Conservative conference fringe event to tell party members they should 'stop rubbishing' Reform and Reform voters.'The mood at this conference so far is far too positive. We have to be honest about the situation that we find ourselves in,' he said.'We've got to start acknowledging the terrible mess we're in.'Lord Frost set out how the Conservatives had lost around 10 million voters since the 2019 general election, when Boris Johnson secured an 80-seat majority. 'In an electorate of 48million, we've got 4.5million people supporting us,' he said of the Tories' current level of support.'This is an appalling situation for a mainstream party.'On the threat to the Tories posed by Reform, Lord Frost added: 'The torpor of the party over the last year has meant the obvious strategy of trying to recreate a proper strong Conservative Party is now much more difficult, because there already is another one.'And it's doing better than we are in the polls. So it's very easy to understand why people might say: 'Why bother? It already exists'.'We aren't showing we understand why things went wrong in 2019 to 2024, so nobody really believes we'll avoid the mistakes next time and nobody is listening to us as a result.'Everything is getting worse and it has done so consistently since November last year. We were on 25 per cent of the vote then, we're on 16 per cent of the vote now.'So no prescription for the party works unless we accept that the situation is extremely bad and we're on the edge of ceasing to exist as a mainstream party.'Lord Frost later told his fellow Tories to 'stop rubbishing Reform, or at least stop rubbishing people who vote for Reform;.'We too often behave... like we've got some sort of right to votes on the Right,' he continued.'We look entitled, like this is our role and somehow these people have come along and taken it from us and isn't it unfair, and isn't it unjust.'Largely people who vote for Reform are conservatives, they're on the Right. Many of us know them, we all know this.'If we want to rebuild the Right, we aren't going to do it by rubbishing them and telling ourselves they're stupid for having gone across.'We need to rebuild and reach out.'