The race to become the next leader of the UK's Conservative Party has been whittled down to the last two candidates after a series of votes by party MPs reduced the field from six.
Apparent frontrunner James Cleverly was knocked out of the contest to replace Rishi Sunak as leader on Wednesday – a mere 24 hours after coming first in the previous round of voting.
The result means Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick – both from the right wing of the party – are left, the winner to be picked after a vote among party members.
On Wednesday Ms Badenoch won 42 votes, Mr Jenrick 41 and Mr Cleverly 37.
Robert Jenrick
The former immigration minister won the most support in the first two rounds of voting and has been second in the later rounds. He and Kemi Badenoch are from the party's right.
He is campaigning on introducing legislation to cap legal immigration. He also wants to pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr Jenrick told the Conservative Friends of Israel that he would move Britain’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. “I stood in this very hall a few years ago and I said it then, as I say it now tonight, and if the Foreign Office or the civil servants don’t want to do it, I will build it myself.”
Nicknamed “Robert Generic” when first elected to the Commons in 2014, he has gradually moved farther to the right. The MP for Newark resigned as a minister in December, claiming the then-draft legislation designed to revive the Rwanda deportation policy did “not go far enough”.
Kemi Badenoch
Ms Badenoch attracted a huge amount of attention after questioning whether maternity pay needs to be looked at as part of cutting excessive red tape. She later denied wanting to cut the benefit.
She said: “Maternity pay varies, depending on who you work for – but statutory maternity pay is a function of tax, tax comes from people who are working. We’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive.”
The shadow housing secretary said her rivals, in particular Mr Jenrick, were distorting her words. “It shows that he’s not actually reading or listening to what I’m saying,” she said.
At another appearance she said maternity leave was badly structured for the national interest. “I think that there are things that we have to do to make sure that we make life comfortable for those people who are … starting families,” she said. “A lot of people have fewer children because they start having children later.”
She told the main stage meeting at this year's party conference in Birmingham that she was offering confident Conservatism. “I’m somebody who gets ‘cut through’,” she said. “I’m somebody who communicates our values and I always start from first principles. I can do it and that’s why I want to be Tory leader.”
Not afraid to be controversial, Ms Badenoch told a conference meeting of the Conservative Friends of Israel that a group of independent MPs who stood on pro-Palestine tickets are a “new threat”. She added: "We must not pretend that these people are a minority. We have to fight this ideology that has no business in our country.”
She became an MP in 2017 and, as minister for women and equalities, called for a change to the Equality Act so that gender is defined only as someone’s biological sex.
She said “renewal” was the first task for a new party leader and she aimed to rebuild the Tories by 2030 and respond to Reform UK’s threat from the right. The former business and trade secretary also made a leadership attempt in 2022 after Boris Johnson’s resignation, coming fourth.
The North-west Essex MP was born in Wimbledon, south-west London, but grew up in Nigeria and the US, returning to the UK at the age of 16. She has a master's degree in engineering as well as being a Bachelor of Law, and has worked at private bank Coutts and The Spectator magazine.
14 years of Conservative Party rule – in pictures
Out of the race
James Cleverly
Shadow home secretary James Cleverly was the first Tory to declare his ambition to succeed Mr Sunak.
He believes in supporting Israel against Hamas and while foreign secretary he led British support for Ukraine. He said he could “unite the Conservative Party and overturn [Keir] Starmer’s loveless landslide” election win.
The party needs to expand its base of support and shake off the impression that it is more focused on infighting than serving the public, he said. “I have been a team player, which has meant I have had to promote other people’s ideas. I have not spent that time promoting my own ideas.”
Mr Cleverly, a centrist in Conservative politics, took an apparent swipe at the right wing of his party when he warned against “sacrificing pragmatic government in the national interest on the altar of ideological purity”.
In a social media video, he highlighted his credentials as having been home and foreign secretary, as well as serving as party chairman when the Tories won the election in 2019.
Mr Cleverly was first elected as the Conservative MP for Braintree in May 2015. After injury cut short his army career, he graduated with a business degree and joined the Territorial Army. He worked in magazine and digital publishing before setting up his own business. He was a London Assembly member before he became an MP.
Tom Tugendhat
The shadow security minister had battled James Cleverly to become the main centrist candidate.
Mr Tugendhat wants to cap annual immigration at 100,000 and has said he would see “the blood of the economy flowing again” through tax cuts. “We don’t do it because we worship high or low taxes. It’s because we believe in freedom,” he told the main hall in his audition to the faithful. “The reason we think taxes should be lower is because we think individuals are better when they are freer, when they’re able to make the decisions over their own lives, and when they’re able to put their effort and their energy into the projects, and the ideas that they think will work.”
The Tonbridge MP indicated he would be prepared to leave the ECHR if it was necessary to secure the UK’s borders. He denied the party would be split by the contest because on key issues, including the ECHR, gender, tax, net zero and defence, all Tories shared the same “common-sense” views.
He also ran unsuccessfully in 2022, when he pitched himself as the candidate untarnished by the scandals that had dogged Mr Johnson and his government. Having entered Parliament in 2015, Mr Tugendhat chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee for five years and previously served in the military.
Priti Patel
Ms Patel is a long-standing Eurosceptic who has said she was inspired to join the Conservative Party by Margaret Thatcher. She became an MP in 2010 and served in cabinet positions under Theresa May and Mr Johnson, as international development secretary and home secretary, respectively.
Ms Patel was a leading figure in the Vote Leave campaign, and as home secretary launched a points-based immigration system, signed the agreement with Rwanda to send asylum seekers to the country, and sealed returns deals with Albania and Serbia. She resigned as home secretary after Liz Truss became Tory leader.
Mel Stride
Shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride is one of Mr Sunak’s closest allies and his frequent media appearances made him the face of the Tory campaign in the run-up to the election disaster. The MP for Central Devon said he believed he was the right person to “unite the party”.
“We’ve substantially lost the trust of the British people and we’ve lost our reputation for competence, and I believe that I’m in a very good position to address those issues going forward,” he said.
Conservative Party big hitters who lost their seats – in pictures
When will there be a winner?
The winner will be announced on November 2 after a vote of party members. Once only two candidates remain, after a last vote of MPs on October 9 the party membership will cast their votes on October 31.
