Priti Patel knocked out of Tory leadership contest getting just 14 votes (original) (raw)

Priti Patel knocked out of race to replace Rishi Sunak after getting just 14 votes

It leaves five candidates competing for the job of Leader of the Opposition - in charge of a hugely diminished Conservative Parliamentary Party

Priti Patel was eliminated fromt he contest

Priti Patel has become the first Tory leadership candidate to be knocked out of the race to replace Rishi Sunak.

It leaves five candidates competing for the job of Leader of the Opposition - in charge of a hugely diminished Conservative Parliamentary Party.

Favourite Robert Jenrick secured 28 votes from Tory MPs, followed by Kemi Badenoch with 22 votes.

James Cleverly, another former Home Secretary, secured 21 votes to land in third place.

Tom Tugendhat who many considered an outside contender got just 17 votes, just beating Sunak-ally Mel Stride, who many expected to be eliminated in the first round, but clung on with 16.

Mr Sunak, still serving as Opposition Leader during the election process, decided to sit this first round of voting out.

The next round of voting will see the field whittled down to four next Tuesday.

The finalists will set out their positions to Tory members at the party's conference at the start of October.

After that, MPs will carry out further rounds of voting to select two final candidates for party members to choose between, with the result announced on November 2.

Several of the candidates have officially launched their campaigns in recent days as MPs returned to Parliament, and many have appeared on the airwaves and made speeches and visits to Tory activists across the country over the summer.

The Mirror understands he's been acting as his own press officer and chief whip in the opening weeks of the campaign.

Mrs Badenoch, widely tipped as the bookmakers' favourite, has sought to position herself as someone who will govern further to the political right, claiming in her Monday launch event that the Tories "talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour ".

Mr Jenrick, widely seen as her closest rival for the job, has sought to centre his campaign on immigration, with a promise to introduce a binding cap on the number of legal migrants and to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Former security minister Mr Tugendhat's pitch is for a reset with the public, based around restoring honesty to politics, while Mr Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, has said his priorities as prime minister would be to boost national security, reduce migration and restore "confidence in capitalism".

Dame Priti promised members she would get the Conservative Party back to its "winning ways" and touted her credentials in cabinet and her work on immigration and policing.