And they’re off! Crowded field jostle for Tory leadership

By Chris White

The race to become the next Conservative leader and Prime Minister is on. Last night the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers announced the timetable for the leadership election.

MPs will narrow down the field of 10 candidates in a series of ballots of Conservative MPs, until the final two progress to face a vote of the full party membership.  

The first ballot of MPs takes place tomorrow, with candidates needing the support of 20 MPs to enter the contest. A further round will take place on Thursday, and any candidate receiving fewer than 30 votes in the first or second round will be automatically eliminated, with the lowest placed candidate dropping out from the second round onwards. 

Further ballots will be held from Monday 18 July as needed until two candidates remain to be put the members. A series of hustings and debates between the final two will take place over the summer. The winner will be announced on Monday 5 September.  

Today saw a flurry of movements across the board as the candidates sought backers to ensure they have the twenty nominees needed to get on the ballot paper.

Rishi Sunak was first out of the blocks, with Grant Shapps pulling out of the race to back him moments before Sunak officially launched his campaign. The bookies’ short-priced favourite, who also received the backing of Dominic Raab to take him close to fifty publicly declared supporters, gave an impressive launch speech. 

Sunak cast himself as the only candidate with an economic plan who was prepared to have a ‘grown up conversation about where we are’. He argued it was crucial to tackle inflation, grow the economy, and only then deliver tax cuts in that order.  However, the event was carefully stage managed, with only a handful of questions allowed for the media, with supporters also booing Sky News correspondent Beth Rigby.

Elsewhere, Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch also launched their campaigns this morning. Tugendhat, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs select committee, exuded confidence and seriousness and relied heavily on a message of integrity and rebuilding public trust. He has won the support of Jake Berry, the influential chairman of the Northern Research Group, in part due to his commitment to levelling up. He should have enough to clear the first hurdles but may need a spark of magic to make it deeper into the contest.

Badenoch’s campaign has been quietly gathering momentum. Initially seen as an outsider, she gained the support of Cabinet veteran Michael Gove, and is likely to meet the threshold of twenty supporters, at least to get on the nomination papers. Her launch was competent, although questions remain about whether her experience as a junior minister is sufficient for the top job.

Elsewhere, the battle for the nominations on the right of the party look like coalescing around Liz Truss, whose bid received backing from Boris loyalists Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, as well as a boost from Priti Patel’s decision not to stand, despite already having a dozen supporters publicly encouraging her to stand. According to Patel’s allies, she will decide who to endorse after the first round or two of voting, and she could give a timely boost to one of the candidates left in the contest.

Of the other candidates, Penny Mordaunt continues to pick up supporters, easily clearing the 20 nominees required to get on the ballot paper, and is ahead of all other candidates bar Rishi Sunak.

Sunak himself remains the one to beat, with a campaign that has been long-planned, and a network of supporters in the party who see him as the one to beat. As of this afternoon, Jeremy Hunt received the required 20 votes, while Nadhim Zahawi, Sajid Javid and Suella Braverman have yet to reach the threshold. It should be noted, however, that with only 179 out of 358 Conservative MPs publicly declared, there is all to play for.  In twenty-four hours we’ll know the result of the first ballot, and that will give us a much clearer idea of who the final two will be.

SEC Newgate’s guide to the runners and riders in the Conservative leadership election and be found here