Johnson will not form pact with Brexit Party - Hancock

LONDON (Reuters) - Incoming British prime minister Boris Johnson will not form an electoral pact with the Brexit Party or seek an early election to gain stronger parliamentary backing for his Brexit plans, health minister and Johnson ally Matt Hancock said on Wednesday.

"There is no way that we are going to have any kind of electoral pact with the Brexit Party and Nigel Farage," Hancock told BBC radio, after being played a clip of U.S. President Donald Trump saying that he expected Brexit Party leader Farage and Johnson to work well together.

"What we are going to do is deliver on Brexit, deliver on the domestic agenda and then defeat the Brexit Party at some point, I hope a long way off, in a general election," he added.

Johnson has repeatedly committed to leaving the European Union by Oct. 31, and has said he does not want to hold a national election before then, despite a wafer-thin working majority in parliament.

(Reporting by David Milliken; editing by James Davey)