Right to vie for Tory crown as Cleverly ditched by MPs

Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are last two standing

- MILLIE COOKE

Conservative MPs stunned Westminster by pivoting to the right and ditching centrist candidate James Cleverly in the race to succeed Rishi Sunak. In a shock result, the former home secretary was knocked out of the contest yesterday, leaving Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch – both candidates favoured by the right of the party – to face a vote of the membership.

Tory MPs appear to have calculated that they need to move to the right to win back votes from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as well as bringing back stay-at-home voters. While elections are usually won from the centre ground, more former Tory voters switched to Reform than to Labour and the Lib Dems combined.

It meant that Sir Keir Starmer was able to win a massive majority with fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn achieved when he was humiliated by Boris Johnson in 2019.

The result came despite Mr Cleverly surging into first place at Tuesday’s ballot after securing the support of 39 MPs. Many watchers expected the bookmakers’ favourite to battle it out with one of his more right-wing rivals in the final head to head. But yesterday he managed only 37 votes, while Ms Badenoch secured 42 votes and Mr Jenrick 41.