BORIS JOHNSON suffered another blow last night as former Tory cabinet minister Sam Gyimah made a surprise defection to the Liberal Democrats.

Mr Gyimah, who represents East Surrey, made an unannounced appearance at the Lib Dems’ annual conference with party leader Jo Swinson.

In an exclusive interview for The Observer, he accused Mr Johnson of “veering” the Tories towards “populism and English nationalism,” and said that he made the decision to defect in order to fight the government’s “scorched earth approach” to Brexit.