A UK Foreign Office minister has resigned ahead of the expected arrival of the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Alan Duncan said he wished to be "free to express my views" on Brexit after current Prime Minister Theresa May stands aside.

It is likely to be the first in a number of ministerial departures in the coming days.

The Chancellor Philip Hammond and Justice Secretary David Gauke have already announced plans to resign if, as expected, Mr Johnson wins the Conservative leadership vote.

The both said they can’t serve in a Government pursuing a ‘no-deal’ Brexit.

File photo of Alan Duncan MP, 11-04-2019. Image: Yui Mok/PA Wire/PA Images

Boris Johnson

Mr Johnson has said the UK must leave the EU on October 31st "do or die" and has suggested that his entire Cabinet will have to sign up to support the strategy.

Voting in the leadership contest is set to close at 5pm this evening, with a winner to be announced tomorrow morning.

Mr Johnson is widely expected to win the race – and will be hoping to finalise his new Cabinet by the end of the week.

"Do or Die"

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson insisted the UK could leave the EU at the end of October if it had the "will" and "drive" for Brexit.

"If they could use hand-knitted computer code to make a frictionless re-entry to Earth's atmosphere in 1969, we can solve the problem of frictionless trade at the Northern Irish border,” he wrote.

"There is no task so simple that government cannot over-complicate if it doesn't want to do it - and there are few tasks so complex that humanity cannot solve if we have a real sense of mission to pull them off.

"It is time this country recovered some of its can-do spirit.

“We can come out of the EU on October 31, and yes, we certainly have the technology to do so. What we need now is the will and the drive."

File photo of the Tánaiste Simon Coveney speaking to the media outside Stormont House in Belfast, 30-05-2019. Image: Niall Carson/PA Wire/PA Images

Backstop

On the BBCs Andrew Marr show yesterday, the Tánaiste Simon Coveney said the withdrawal agreement remains the only way to avoid a no deal Brexit.

“If the approach of the new British Prime Minister is that they are going tear up the withdrawal agreement then I think we are in trouble,” he said.

“I think we are all in trouble quite frankly because that is a bit like saying, ‘either give me what I want I want or I am going to burn the house down for everybody.’”

Peace process

He said the agreement involved “compromise on all sides” over years of negotiation and the EU will not simply throw that away because a new UK Prime Minister says it has to.

“This is about reassuring people in Northern Ireland that they are not going to go back to the friction and tensions of the past,” he said.

“To ask Ireland to compromise on that core issue when we spent two-and-a-half years working with the British government and the EU to try and find a way, through compromise on all sides, to ensure that we don’t face that prospect, is not a reasonable ask.”

Theresa May will formally resign her position on Wednesday afternoon.

With reporting from IRN