Johnson urged to roll May

BORIS Johnson is being sounded out to replace Theresa May as prime minister as Britain’s battered Conservative Party descends into chaos after Thursday’s disastrous election result.

The colourful Foreign Secretary, a leading Brexiteer, is circling the wounded Mrs May, who is struggling to hold her job and strike a deal with a minor party in Northern Ireland to form a minority government.

He tweeted yesterday that claims he would launch a leadership coup by Monday were “tripe’’ and that “I am backing Theresa May. Let’s get on with the job.’’

But the British press were being briefed by allies of Mr Johnson that he was being pressed to take on the lame duck Mrs May, whose disastrous gamble to take Britain to an early poll cost the Tories majority government.

The clock is ticking on the Tories to settle their leadership dispute with the formal negotiations over Brexit starting on Monday next week. Mr Johnson, a popular former Tory mayor of London, was a prime ministerial aspirant himself last year until a blindside from former ally Michael Gove ruined his chances.

Mrs May yesterday caved into senior Tory demands and jettisoned her joint chiefs of staff, Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill.

The development comes as problems emerged between the Conservatives and the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland, which will help Mrs May form min- ority government after she fell sort of a majority.

The DUP is resisting Tory efforts to lock in to a formal coalition, prompting Downing Street to send Chief Whip Gavin Williamson to Belfast to try for a deal so they can’t be held to ransom by the DUP’s 10 votes.

In a further complication, the pending deal is upsetting the Scottish Conservative Party, which saved Mrs May from total humiliation by taking 12 seats off the Scottish National Party on Thursday night and giving the Tories 13 seats in Scotland — their best result in 40 years.

Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson is engaged to her same-sex partner, Jen Wilson, and wants to get married in her local church.

The DUP is opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion.

She said she had sought and received assurances from Mrs May that she would try to advance gay rights in Northern Ireland — the only part of the UK where same-sex marriage is not permitted — regardless of the DUP deal.