Nigel Farage has said that he would find it difficult to work with a future Tory leader who has backed Theresa May’s Brexit deal, ruling out a tie-up with Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab.

Tory MPs are openly speculating on whether a future Conservative leader would come to a deal over contesting seats if a general election is called to deal with the Brexit impasse in Parliament.

On Saturday Conservative MP Crispin Blunt said it was an “unavoidable necessity” that the Tories would have to form “some kind of electoral pact and common platform” with the Brexit Party.

However, on a campaign tour of Essex, asked if the next leader would have to drop support for the Withdrawal Agreement to win the Brexit Party’s backing Mr Farage told The Daily Telegraph: “Of course. Absolutely.

“If a new Conservative leader said ‘we are leaving on WTO terms on Hallowe’en Day’ then that would be a great step in the right direction but would they actually stick to it? How could we trust them? That is the problem.

“Everyone keeps shouting Boris’s name at me - Boris voted for the Withdrawal Agreement despite everything he had written in your newspaper. I have got a real problem with that. A real problem with that. So we will see.”