Hunt reportedly refusing cabinet demotion as Boris Johnson’s reshuffle gets under way
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Leading Boris Johnson supporter rules out electoral pact with Nigel Farage
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Mattha Busby.
As Mattha reported earlier, Nigel Farage, the Brexit party leader, has used an article in the Daily Telegraph (paywall) to offer Boris Johnson the prospect of some sort of electoral pact in an autumn election designed to get a parliamentary majority for a hard Brexit. (See 8.34am.)
During the leadership campaign Johnson repeatedly ruled this out. And this morning Matt Hancock, the health secretary and now a leading Johnson supporter, when he gave an interview to the Today programme as a proxy for the Johnson campaign. Hancock said:
There is no way that we are going to have any kind of electoral pact with the Brexit party and with Nigel Farage.
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Farage says Johnson could ‘smash Labour’ in autumn election by forming pact with Brexit party
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Timetable for the day
The Conservative party has chosen, and today Boris Johnson will become prime minister. Here is how the day will pan out.
12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at prime minister’s questions for the final time in the House of Commons. The incoming PM is said not to be expected in the chamber for PMQs, as he prepares his new government.
2pm: After saying goodbye to her staff and giving a brief valedictory speech outside of Number 10 Downing Street, May will travel to Buckingham Palace to formally resign to the queen before heading to her constituency home in Maidenhead, Berkshire. Shortly after his predecessor has left the palace, Johnson will go to see Elizabeth II, where she will appoint him as prime minister.
4pm: Johnson will be driven to Downing Street, where he will address the nation for the first time in his new job before meeting the staff in his new home. Sky News is reporting that he will then be given an urgent security briefing.
5pm: In one-on-one meetings his parliamentary office in the House of Commons, Johnson is expected to sack the majority of the current Cabinet.
7.30pm: Back in Downing Street, the new prime minister will begin installing his new heads of department, and is reportedly aiming to have at least 12 cabinet positions filled by 10pm.
As my colleagues Heather Stewart and Jessica Elgot report, Johnson is already “love-bombing” centre-ground MPs as speculation swirls over the makeup of his first cabinet.
Here’s what the papers had to say about the PM in waiting overnight, courtesy of my colleague Kate Lyons.
Meanwhile, the EU has dismissed as “rubbish” Johnson’s claims that the impact leaving the EU with no deal would be tempered by a series of “side deals” he claimed the UK has already agreed with Brussels, as our Brexit correspondent Lisa O’Carroll reports.

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