Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick left in race to be UK Conservative leader

Party members will now choose between former Trade Minister Badenoch and former Immigration Minister Jenrick after James Cleverly was eliminated from the race.

Two right-wing former ministers will go head-to-head in the final round of the race to become the next leader of the UK’s Conservative Party after former Foreign Minister James Cleverly was eliminated.

Wednesday’s vote by Conservative lawmakers saw Kemi Badenoch receive 42 out of 120 votes, ahead of Robert Jenrick with 41 votes. In a surprise twist, Cleverly, who won the previous round of voting, was eliminated from the race with 37 votes.

The vote is the penultimate step in a race that has been marked by the kind of in-fighting that some Conservatives blame for their party’s defeat in July’s national election.

Party members nationwide will now choose between former Trade Minister Badenoch and former Immigration Minister Jenrick, with the victor to be announced on November 2.

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

Meanwhile, 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.

According to the Conservative Home website, Badenoch is the most popular contender among the party’s membership.

The final two both say they will reunite a party which had become mired in chaos, scandal and deep divisions over Brexit during its last eight years in government, and pledge to return it to its conservative roots to offer an alternative to Labour at the next national election, which must take place by mid-2029.

Whoever becomes leader will be charged with turning around the Conservatives’ fortunes after they suffered a heavy defeat in the July election, when Labour won a landslide victory.

But the Conservatives are more hopeful of returning to power in five years rather than the once expected 10 after Prime Minister Keir Starmer suffered a bumpy start to government, coming under fire over welfare cuts and donations for clothes.