Former Home Secretary Priti Patel is the first candidate to be knocked out of the race to become the next Conservative leader.
Bob Blackman, the chairman of the 1922 Committee which balloted MPs on who they want at the top of the party, announced the results of the first round of voting this afternoon.
Ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick came top with 28 votes, with bookies’ favourite Kemi Badenoch in second with 22 and Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly in third with 21.
Patel received 14 votes from MPs, just behind Shadow Pensions Secretary Mel Stride with 16 and former security minister Tom Tugendhat with 17.
The tightness of the vote counts reflect a race with no obvious frontrunner, as the remaining five vie to make it to the final two – when the electorate changes from Tory MPs to the wider party membership.
It was widely thought that Mel Stride would be the first to leave the contest, but his fifth-place finish may mean he will now officially launch his campaign.
Further balllots will take place next week to whittle the five down to four, meaning underdog Stride will have to hoover up more than a few of Patel’s former voters if he is to have any hope of continuing.
The numbers involved are particularly volatile due to the dramatic reduction of the parliamentary party following the July 4 General Election: before Labour’s landslide, 365 Conservatives sat in the House of Commons. Now there are just 121 of them.
It also means the tone of the announcement from the 1922 Committee has changed dramatically.
At the last big contest two years ago, the nation was hooked to the words of then-chairman Sir Graham Brady as he announced who would be Boris Johnson’s successor as prime minister.
Now, it’s a race to find out who will serve as leader of the opposition on behalf of the smallest number of Conservative MPs since the party was founded.
That shift is reflected in the tones of the leadership campaigns so far. All the candidates have offered diagnoses for what went so horribly wrong at the election and suggested how to fix it.
By this time next week, we’ll know which vision of the Tory party’s future is the next to be rejected by the people who would have to subscribe to it.
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