James Cleverly emerges as frontrunner in UK Conservatives leadership race

The contest to replace former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will run until November 2.

Conservative lawmakers in Britain have ejected former Security Minister Tom Tugendhat from the party leadership contest, leaving three contenders still running to lead the party after its catastrophic election defeat in July.

Tugendhat garnered 20 votes in a ballot of 120 members of parliament, finishing last. Former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly topped the ballot with 39 votes.

Former Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick got 31 votes and ex-Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch received 30.

Another candidate will be kicked out of the race by legislators on Wednesday before tens of thousands of party members across the country choose between the final two.

The result adds to Cleverly’s momentum in the race. Cleverly, a centrist, picked up support with a well-received speech at last week’s Conservative conference. He urged the fractious party to “be more normal” and argued he had the skills to defeat the Labour Party of Prime Minister Keir Starmer and return the Conservatives to power at the next election, due by 2029.

Jenrick, a hardliner who calls for Britain to make deep cuts to immigration and rip up European human rights law, had been considered the frontrunner since the contest started in July.

Jenrick raised his profile when he quit as an immigration minister under Sunak over what he called the “fatally flawed” Rwanda plan to send asylum seekers to the African nation. Then he said it was not robust enough.

Badenoch, a former trade minister, has positioned herself as an outspoken darling of not just the right wing of the party but of younger lawmakers, promising to be “something different”, a challenging voice in what she describes as a broken government system.

Criticised by some yet adored by others for her outspoken views on Brexit and on what she calls “identity politics”, Badenoch said she wants the party to return to “authentic Conservatism” and stop “talking right, governing left”.

The contest to replace former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will run until November 2 after Conservative members cast the final ballots for a new leader, charged with turning around the fortunes of a party decimated in the July 4 elections by Labour.

The party’s last contested leadership selection, in mid-2022, saw members choose Liz Truss over Rishi Sunak. Truss resigned as prime minister after just 49 days in office when her tax-cutting plans rocked the financial markets and battered the value of the pound. The party then picked Sunak to replace her.

In July, Sunak led the Conservative Party to its worst election result since 1832. The Conservatives lost more than 200 parliamentary seats, taking their tally down to 121.