Mr Johnson, Conservative MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, announced he will take part in the leadership contest when Theresa May resigns. But he “ruled out” any form of alliance with Mr Farage, despite the Brexit Party’s increasing surge in opinion polls, according to a friend of the Tory. The unnamed source told The Sun: “He’s categorically ruled out doing any deal with Nigel Farage. 

“Boris is the only leadership candidate who can see off both him and hard-left Mr Corbyn.”

The Brexit Party has surged in opinion polls in the past weeks and yesterday overtook for the first time the Conservative Party in a survey asking Britons their voting preferences at the next general elections.

According to the poll carried out by Opinium, the Brexit Party sits on 24 percent in terms of voting intentions for a Westminster election while the Tories remain on 23 percent with Labour in front on 29 percent.  

Mr Farage has also cast doubt he would strike a coalition pact with Mr Johnson.

Mr Farage was asked during an electoral campaign event in Edinburgh if he “trusts” the former Mayor of London.

He said: “Would I trust Boris Johnson?

“Boris wrote in his column repeatedly that Mrs May’s new treaty was vassalage – that we’d become a slave state – and I rather agreed with that analysis, even if his language was more colourful than perhaps what I would use.  

“Then, on the third attempt, he voted for it.

“So I’m not quite sure where Boris stands on all of this.”

Mr Johnson, a Brexiteer and former Foreign Secretary who quit in protest of the Prime Minister’s soft Brexit plan outlined at the Chequers last July, rejected twice the withdrawal agreement struck by the Government and Brussels in November.

But he backed the deal at Mrs May’s third attempt to get it through Parliament in March, after the Prime Minister said she would resign if the majority of MPs favoured her deal and let the UK leave the EU by March 29. 

Mr Johnson is only one of the dozen Tories expected to throw their hats into the ring in the coming weeks.

But he is already considered the clear favourite, according to a YouGov poll carried out between May 10 and 16 on 858 Conservative Party members for The Times newspaper.

As many as 39 percent of those polled said Mr Johnson is their first choice to replace Mrs May, followed by former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab at 13 percent.   

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