James Cleverly was eliminated from the Tory leadership race because Robert Jenrick's team ruthlessly targeted his supporters "who hated Kemi Badenoch", The Independent can reveal.
The former home secretary looked to have been a certainty for the final two of the contest to go to Conservative members when the penultimate set of results were announced on Tuesday, putting him eight ahead of the previous frontrunner Mr Jenrick. With Mr Jenrick just one vote ahead of Ms Badenoch and 20 votes to be distributed from the eliminated Tom Tugendhat, his team thought that they were about to fall at the last hurdle.
What followed was a ruthless whipping operation led by Mr Jenrick's core supporters including campaign manager Danny Kruger, Common Sense group chair Sir John Hayes, One Nation cheerleader John Lamont, Brexiteer Europe Research Group chair Mark Francois, and MPs Joy Morrissey and Neil O'Brien.
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