RUTH Davidson has been accused of “desperate back-pedalling” after she said would canvas on the doorstep for Boris Johnson if he becomes prime minister.

That’s despite previously being a high-profile critic of the former foreign secretary.

The Scottish Tory leader said she still wanted her preferred candidate, Sajid Javid, to win the Tory leadership contest, but added she was ready to back Johnson against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in a General Election.

Davidson, who supported Remain, locked horns with Johnson, a leader of the Vote Leave campaign, in a televised debate at the Wembley Arena ahead of the EU vote.

She told viewers: “You’re being asked to make a decision on Friday that’s irreversible, you can’t change it, and you’re being sold it on a lie. They lied about the costs of Europe, they lied about Turkey. They lied about the European Army. We have a veto on all those things. They’ve put them in their leaflets and it’s Not. Good. Enough. You deserve the truth. You deserve the truth!”

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Earlier in the campaign she took to social media to attack Johnson’s performance in a TV interview. She tweeted: “Is it just me or is Boris floundering here? Not sure the bumble-bluster, kitten smirk, tangent-bombast routine is cutting through. #Marr.”

But asked on BBC Radio yesterday if she thought Johnson would make a good prime minister, she said: “Em, obviously I believe that Saj would make a better one, that’s why I’m backing him over any of the other candidates, Boris included. But I think that you can never tell how someone’s going to perform in the office of prime minister until they assume that office.”

She denied she had called him a liar. “I didn’t call him a liar, I said that the people out there deserved the truth, and they did, and I stand by that.”

Asked if she could go into an election campaign, knocking on doors and telling voters she believed Johnson would be the best prime minister, she replied: “Up against Jeremy Corbyn? Yes.”

The SNP’s Keith Brown said: “Ruth Davidson is desperately back-pedalling in hope of hanging on to her own job. The pressure is building and the Tories are panicking ... it’s increasingly clear Ruth Davidson’s leadership is on borrowed time.”

Last week Scottish Secretary David Mundell was accused of flip-flopping over Johnson when he said he could work with him as PM, after previously saying he couldn’t.

Asked if he would serve in a Johnson-led Cabinet, Mundell said: “I’ve never said that I wouldn’t serve under a Boris Johnson government.”

But the ITV interviewer reminded him of comments he made in December, when he said: “Given my views about Mr Johnson, which are well known, that would be extremely difficult [to serve in a Johnson-led Cabinet]. Mr Johnson and I don’t agree on a whole range of issues and I don’t see myself being able to serve in that way.”