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LAST UPDATE | 13 Jul 2022
UK CHANCELLOR NADHIM Zahawi and former Cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt have been eliminated from the race to succeed Boris Johnson after the first round of voting by Conservative MPs.
Rishi Sunak, whose resignation as Chancellor helped trigger the Tory leadership race, topped the ballot, with trade minister Penny Mordaunt ahead of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.
Senior backbencher Tom Tugendhat, Attorney General Suella Braverman and former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch also progressed to the final six candidates.
Zahawi along with Hunt, who has held the offices of health and foreign secretary, both failed to get the 30 votes required to get to the next stage.
Graham Brady, the chairman of the Conservative 1922 committee overseeing the contest, read out the results in a crowded Committee Room 14 in the House of Commons.
Sunak was on 88, Mordaunt on 67, Truss, 50, Badenoch, 40, Tugendhat, 37, and Braverman squeaked through on 32.
Zahawi, brought in by Johnson after Sunak’s resignation, got 25 and Hunt only 18.
Truss sought to unite the right of the party, as subsequent voting from tomorrow will eliminate the least popular candidate until two are left.
“Now is the time for colleagues to unite behind the candidate who will cut taxes, deliver the real economic change we need from day one and ensure Putin loses in Ukraine,” a spokeswoman for the UK Foreign Secretary said.
Zahawi-backer Jonathan Gullis suggested the campaigns should now get behind a single standard-bearer for the party’s right-wing.
But, in conceding defeat, Zahawi declined to announce his backing of a favoured candidate, saying he does not “intend to make any further intervention”.
The first round of voting came after Downing Street was forced to deny running a “stop Sunak” smear campaign as the battle grew increasingly bitter.
The caretaker UK Prime Minister’s press secretary insisted that Johnson is “staying neutral” despite his remaining arch-loyalists throwing their support behind Truss.
Two of them, Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, announced their backing and stepped up their public criticism of Sunak after leaving Johnson’s Cabinet meeting.
Dorries, the UK Culture Secretary, accused the former chancellor’s campaign of deploying “dirty tricks” to benefit his campaign and backed Truss as the Brexiteers’ candidate.
Brexit opportunities minister Rees-Mogg accused Sunak of having implemented “economically damaging” policies.
Asked if No 10 is involved in an anti-Sunak operation as the first round of voting loomed, Johnson’s press secretary bluntly said: “No.”
She declined to say whether Downing Street remains supportive of the former chancellor, whose resignation helped end Johnson’s grip on No 10.
The press secretary said she did not know whether Johnson discussed backing Truss with his allies before they made their public declaration in Downing Street.
“He’s staying neutral in this contest,” the spokeswoman said.
Rees-Mogg argued that the UK Foreign Secretary is “fiscally on the right side of the argument”, unlike Sunak.
The minister told Sky News that Truss “opposed the endless tax rises of the former chancellor, which I think have been economically damaging, I also was opposed to (them) in Cabinet”.
He also said Truss – who voted Remain in the 2016 European Union referendum – is more willing to take advantage of Brexit than Leave-voting Sunak.
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, who abandoned his own leadership bid to back Sunak, denied claims from Dorries that the campaign has engaged in dirty tricks.
“Simply, in this case it just didn’t happen,” he said.
Meanwhile, trade minister Mordaunt officially launched her campaign by telling colleagues who had been fearful of losing their seats under Johnson’s leadership that she is their “best shot” at winning the next election.
“I’m the candidate that Labour fear the most – and they’re right to,” she told Conservatives at Westminster’s Cinnamon Club.
Seen as one of the frontrunners in the race, Mordaunt declined to describe Johnson as a good Prime Minister, instead thanking him for delivering Brexit.
Mordaunt insisted she is “very different” from Johnson but indicated she would not call an early general election to win her own mandate if she entered No 10.
The naval reservist and former defence secretary pledged to return to traditional Conservative values of “low tax, small state and personal responsibility”.
She said she stands by the Conservative manifesto commitment to meet the Nato target for defence spending of 2% of GDP and increase it by 0.5% above inflation every year.
The next ballot will be held tomorrow, when the candidate who wins the fewest votes to be eliminated. The process will continue until two are left.
The final pair will spend the summer battling it out to win the support of Conservative members, with their choice of the next prime minister being unveiled on 5 September.
Johnson will formally tender his resignation to the Queen to make way for his successor the following day, his official spokesman confirmed.
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Truss is just another self serving egotist similar to the tool they’re replacing. She was a strident Remainer until the votes were counted and had an overnight epiphany when she saw which way the wind was blowing. Up to last week, she was an enthusiast enabler for Johnson and happy to support his attempts to break both British and international law. She’s probably the worst of a bad lot. Besides, anyone who has the endorsement of that creep, Rees Mogg, should be viewed as completely untrustworthy.
@Paul Shepherd: I would think she is the worst of a bad lot. Does whatever it takes to get into power.
Not my words but an apt description of the Conservative Party leadership contest – “it’s a bit like laying on your bed in hospital relieved to hear Jimmy Saville won’t be visiting this weekend only to hear the sounds of a didgeridoo coming from down the corridor”
@Ciaran Leonard: brilliant,
@Ciaran Leonard:
@Ciaran Leonard: can you guess who it is yet?
What a de testable, morally Bank rupt group of upper middle class s wine.
@Football Value Trader: and those are their best qualities.
So the husband of the tax avoider is the front runner to become PM. British politics is nearly as bad as our own!
@John Long: worse I’d say , but a close call
@John Long: Tax avoidance is legal. Tax evasion is the one that isn’t.
We all would pay less tax if we could
Competing with each other to be the most horrible bollix..
The Tories could well have Britain’s first non white PM, kinda puts to bed the “male pale and stale” talk that’s constantly heard from labour. While labour talks of diversity, the Tories seem to be doing it, very strange world we’re living in
@Pól Ó’hAodha: I take your point regarding colour. But really what diversity are you talking about? These people share mainline Tory views (and worse). The only real diversity here is betweeen those who cut taxes and those who raise them. Even then theres precious little to choose between. Identity politics are bs. These people are just more wealthy exponents of Tory policy.
@Pól Ó’hAodha: I predict that if the final two has one white person and one person of colour, the male, pale, and stale, Tory members will pick the white person.
@Pól Ó’hAodha: Colour isn’t a sign of virtue especially when the person is a Tory, just look at Priti Patel if she got any more cartoonishly evil I’d start to think a house fell on her sister
The comments from that odious creep, Rees Mogg really make me laugh. He couldn’t possibly support or work with Sunak because of his disloyalty to the PM. He clearly didn’t have any such qualms working with Bozo whose disloyalty to Theresa May when she was PM was both breathtaking and downright insulting. Loyalty appears to be a one way street for these individuals.
Can’t see Brexiteers liking that multicultural lineup
@Dean: Pretty sure they already voted for them as MPs in the first place
It would be funny if Varadkar and Sunak were running the two places in a few months.
Reckon it is a two woman race between PM and LT with Mordaunt winning, mainly because she is a real Brexiteer and a ‘ new direction’. Sunak is the most experienced candidate but he and his wife dirtied their bibs and brexiteers won’t like the fact that he is of Indian origin. Remember this is the Conservative Colonial party!! If Mordaunt is serious about undoing Johnson’s damage to foreign relations with E.U./N.I./U.S. then Truss is out of the picture, along with dup along with the right wing i.e. Rees Mogg and Dorries and Patel, who will be having cocktails in Rwanda. It will be fascinating. The Irish Govt and E.U. need to be doing more to get their opinions heard.
Hunt was probably the pick of a bad bunch
I see Penny is now odds on with the bookies.
have your say