Bookies slash odds on Boris Johnson being next Prime Minister despite Theresa May refusing to resign

Boris Johnson is bookies' favourite to succeed Theresa May
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Chris Baynes9 June 2017
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Odds on Boris Johnson being the next Prime Minister have plummeted as Britain comes to terms with a hung Parliament after the election.

Bookies put the former Mayor of London as favourite to succeed Theresa May, who resisted mounting pressure to quit after her snap election backfired.

Mr Johnson was 66/1 to be the UK's next Prime Minister before polls closed on Thursday night, but those odds tumbled to just 7/1 as the knives came out for the Tory leader over her party's failure to secure a majority.

Ms May remained front-runner to lead the next government after insisting she would not resign despite falling short of 326 seats and criticism of her election campaign.

She was set to go to Buckingham Palace on Friday afternoon to seek permission to form a Government.

Bookies put the Conservative leader at 1/4 to remain Prime Minister of a Conservative government.

Former chancellor George Osborne claimed Boris Johnson, who backed out of the Conservative leadership contest which Mrs May won last year, would have “a little smile on his face right now” after the party missed out on a majority.

Mr Osborne told ITV: "Clearly if she's got a worse result than two years ago and is almost unable to form a government then she, I doubt, will survive in the long term as Conservative party leader."

Jeremy Corbyn was 10/1 to be next PM after Labour said it would look to form a minority government.

Tory ministers David Davis, Amber Rudd and Philip Hammond are all outsiders to lead to UK.

​Punters staked about £90 million on Thursday's General Election making it the third biggest political betting event in history, according to Betfair.

Spokeswoman Naomi Totten said: "In what is becoming the status quo for political events, we have seen yet another unexpected result with a Hung Parliament only really being backed in the past week or so and 50 per cent of bets still coming in backing Labour rather than no overall majority overnight."

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