RIBBLE Valley MP Nigel Evans is backing Boris Johnson as the next Tory leader and the politician to deliver Brexit in October and win the next General Election.

The backbencher was unable to declare his preference while the candidates were whittled down from 10 to two by a series of ballots organised by the Parliamentary party’s 1922 committee of which he is secretary.

Now Mr Evans, a long-term fan of the two-time Mayor of London, has given his support to Mr Johnson as the UK’s next prime minister.

He dismissed weekend newspaper reports of police being called by neighbours to the home the former Foreign Secretary shares with his partner Carrie Symonds after hearing a row between the two as ‘a storm in a teacup’.

Mr Evans joined his East Lancashire Tory MP colleagues, Rossendale and Darwen’s Jake Berry and Pendle’s Andrew Stephenson, in backing Mr Johnson for the top job.

He said: “I shall be voting for Boris in the final ballot.

“He’s the candidate who can get us out of the European Union by October 31.

“He is charismatic, as he showed then he came to Gisburn Auction Mart in the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign. People respond to him and want to talk to him.

“He is also a proven winner, elected as Mayor of London not once but twice."