The contest to replace Rishi Sunak as Conservative Party leader has officially begun, as Tories are gradually started to put themselves forward.
After enduring a historic defeat in the general election and walking away with just 121 seats in total, former PM Sunak said he was stepping back from the helm of the party when his successor was chosen.
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As the fight for the soul of the party begins, it remains to be seen whether it will end up going for a more centrist figure, or leaning further right.
Here’s who has officially announced their leadership bids, who is expected to – and how long this whole competition is going to go on for…
1. James Cleverly
Shadow home secretary James Cleverly
via Associated Press
The former home secretary (who now shadows the same role) announced his plan to run on Tuesday, a day before nominations actually opened.
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Seen as a moderate within the Conservative ranks, he has said the Conservatives need to “re-establish our reputation as the party who, in government, helps grow the economy, helps people achieve their goals, their dream and their aspirations”.
Alluding to the party’s historic loss at the ballot box, he said: “We must ditch the self-indulgent infighting and be ready to deliver when the next chance comes.”
According to a Savanta poll shared with Sky News, Cleverly has a net favourability of -9 with the general public.
He held several ministerial jobs under Boris Johnson before being appointed as the education secretary at the end of the ex-PM’s premiership.
He was foreign secretary for both Liz Truss and Sunak, and home secretary from November 2023 and July 2024.
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2. Tom Tugendhat
Shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat
Anadolu via Anadolu via Getty Images
Formerly the security minister, Tugendhat now shadows the same role on the other side of the House.
Although he launched his campaign with a bang by saying he would consider leaving the ECHR (European Convention on Human Rights), he is usually perceived as a moderate in the one nation wing of the party.
He argued in an article for The Telegraph that he would prepared to leave the ECHR if institutions make it harder to control the country’s borders, claiming this was a “common sense Conservative position” to take.
The former army officer suggested defence spending should be pulled up to 3% of GDP, and claimed he was running “to be the next Conservative prime minister”.
He is expected to try and appeal to Tory members more sympathetic to Reform UK.
His campaign manager, Tory MP Danny Kruger, said Jenrick has the “energy, temperament and policy agenda to take on our rivals and lead us back to power in five years.”
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He was not included in the Savanta poll because he did not run in the last leadership election in 2022.
Who else is expected to run?
Mel Stride, shadow work and pensions secretary, admitted at the weekend he was “considering” putting himself forward – he held onto his seat in the election by just 61 votes.
Former home secretary Suella Braverman and her predecessor Priti Patel are both expected to put themselves forward in the coming days.
Kemi Badenoch, shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, may also join the race.
Shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins was expected to run, but she said she would not be in a social media post.
Rishi Sunak announced his resignation as Tory Party leader when he lost the general election
via Associated Press
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How will the process work?
The nominations for the candidates opened on July 24.
Each candidate needs to secure backing from 10 other MPs by July 29 to make it to the next round.
But, only around 100 MPs will be able to support a chosen candidate.
That’s because MPs who are whips or who sit on the executive backbencher 1922 committee cannot support a candidate.
It means only 10 Tories – at most – will be able to move to progress past this point in the race.
If two or more candidates get through, a campaign will take place throughout the summer.
In September, MPs cast their votes on the remaining candidates.
The four with the most votes will be selected, and all offered a chance to speak at the Tory party conference, (from September 29 to October 2), and MPs will vote again.
The two with the most vote go through to the next hurdle.
The remaining pair will then have to go before the party members, who will vote on their favourite candidate in an online ballot which closes on October 31.
To vote, members must have been “active” when the whole contest opened in July, and been members for at least 90 days before the ballot closes.
The new leader and official leader of the opposition will be confirmed on November 2, and Sunak’s time leading the Conservatives will officially end.
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They will become the sixth leader of the Tory Party since 2016.
A top Tory has been called out for interrupting a cabinet minister and heckling jim from the dispatch box.
Shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins, who is expected to run for the party leadership, had to be rebuked by the deputy speaker for her “abominable” behaviour in the Commons.
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On Friday afternoon, the new environment, food and rural affairs secretary Steve Reed began his first speech as a member of government by talking about the Labour’s plan to “get Britain building again”.
It was part of the parliamentary debate on the King’s Speech.
But, he was interrupted repeatedly by Tories – first by Tory backbencher and former party chair Richard Holden, who stood up to indicate he wanted to speak.
But Reed refused to give way, saying there was not enough time for Holden’s speech and that other “members should have spoken for less time” earlier in the three-hour debate.
Reed then attacked the Conservatives for neglected parts of the country.
The shadow housing, communities and local government secretary, Kemi Badenoch, who is also expected to try out for Tory leader, then attempted to cut in.
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But Reed said: “I am very sorry but there are only three minutes left and I need to cover the points that have been raised. They had their time.”
He resumed by talking about how Labour plans to increase the number of mental health professionals.
Atkins then jumped up and leant across the despatch box while shouting at Reed, seemingly irate.
The deputy speaker Sir Christopher Chope had to shout: “Order. The right honourable member for Louth and Horncastle [Atkins] has behaved abominably.”
According to The Guardian, a spokesperson for Atkins’ office said: “Conservative MPs were trying to get answers about their budgets for farming, flood defences and food security, which the minister ignored.
“She will always stand up fearlessly for farmers and our rural area in Westminster, even if that means a rare admonishment from the Chair.”
Reed wrapped up his speech by reeling off the “Tories’ failure”, calling his opponents “the party of broken dreams”.
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Closing the debate, Reed said: “After 14 years of chaos, there is once again hope for our environment, hope for our countryside and hope for our rural communities. I welcome the king’s speech, I recommend it to this house.”
Over the weekend, clips of this exchange were picked up by other MPs….
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This happened during my first experience of a debate in the chamber. The behaviour of several Conservative MPs was appalling. After the debate, I asked a group of them why they behaved that way. I was accused of rudeness myself for having the temerity to ask. Absolutely shocking. https://t.co/PuS57iyTqI
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Absolutely shocking. https://t.co/PuS57iyTqI— Max Wilkinson MP (@mpmwilko) July 20, 2024\n\n\n","options":{"_hide_media":{"label":"Hide photos, videos, and cards","value":false},"_maxwidth":{"label":"Adjust width","placeholder":"220-550, in px","value":""},"_theme":{"value":"","values":{"dark":"Use dark theme"}}},"provider_name":"Twitter","title":"Max Wilkinson MP on Twitter / 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This happened during my first experience of a debate in the chamber. The behaviour of several Conservative MPs was appalling. After the debate, I asked a group of them why they behaved that way. I was accused of rudeness myself for having the temerity to ask. Absolutely shocking. https://t.co/PuS57iyTqI
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Kemi Badenoch clashed with a Times Radio presenter after being accused of “stoking the culture wars” over trans issues.
The business secretary has called on people to give examples of how public bodies use incorrect guidance on access to single-sex spaces.
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She said she wanted to “tackle any confusion” which there might be on the matter.
Appearing on Times Radio this morning, presenter Aasmah Mir asked Badenoch: “What happens if there are very few examples? The reason I ask that is because clearly there are some people who might be confused.
“Is this just stoking the culture wars? This is something that’s very tiny, doesn’t really happen that often.”
But the minister hit back: “I do take issue with you calling this culture wars. Four years ago, when I was alerting people to the danger of puberty blockers, and a lot of the issues that we had in clinics, people like you were accusing me of fighting culture wars.
“I think it’s really important that especially when journalists talk about this, that you take the heat out. It’s not helpful. It is really unhelpful to call this culture wars. We’re trying to do the right thing by children and women in particular. Please don’t call it culture wars.”
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Aasmah Mir replied: “The two things are they’re very different, aren’t they? I mean, we’re talking about puberty blockers [and that] is very different to toilets, isn’t it?”
Badenoch said: “The point I’m making is that when politicians are trying to do the right thing, I think it’s important that you take it at face value rather than casting aspersions on the motivation.”
Shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said Badenoch “does love nothing more than a culture war and it is so transparent what she is doing”.
“She is pitching to Conservative members for the leadership contest to come in the Conservative Party,” she said. “And frankly, our country deserves a lot better than it always being about the Conservative Party.”
A spokesman for TPP, the tech firm Hester runs, said he “accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbott in a private meeting several years ago but his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.
Downing Street repeatedly refused today to call the remarks “racist”, insisting instead that they were “unacceptable”.
A spokeswoman for the prime minister, who spent the day working in No.10, told reporters: “What is alleged and reported to have been said would clearly have been unacceptable, but we are not going to characterise further alleged comments from source reporting.”
But Badenoch broke ranks with the PM to make her views clear on X (formerly Twitter).
She said: “Hester’s 2019 comments, as reported, were racist.
“I welcome his apology. Abbott and I disagree on a lot. But the idea of linking criticism of her, to being a black woman is appalling. It’s never acceptable to conflate someone’s views with the colour of their skin.
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“MPs have a difficult job balancing multiple interests -often under threats of intimidation as we saw recently in parliament.
“Some people make flippant comments without thinking of this context. This is why there needs to be space for forgiveness where there is contrition.”
MPs have a difficult job balancing multiple interests -often under threats of intimidation as we saw recently in parliament.
Some people make flippant comments without thinking of this context.
This is why there needs to be space for forgiveness where there is contrition (2/2)
Meanwhile, health minister Maria Caulfield told the BBC: “I condemn these comments – I personally do find them racist- it’s not something we should be kind of excusing in any way.”
The comments were at odds with fellow ministers Graham Stuart and Mel Stride, both of whom sought to play down the row earlier today.
In his first public comments on the row, Hester said “racism … is a poison that has no place in public life”.
He added: “The UK benefits immensely from the rich diversity of people – like my parents – who had roots in another land, religion and culture.
“We should celebrate those differences which have made us the world’s most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy. And we should have the confidence to discuss our differences openly and even playfully without seeking to cause offence.”
Having quoted me accurately saying “I abhor racism” @guardian newspaper has just asked me to confirm that I made these following remarks at the same meeting 5 years ago that they reported on yesterday. They claim that I told staff:
In a statement, Diane Abbott said: “It is frightening. I live in Hackney and do not drive, so I find myself, at weekends, popping on a bus or even walking places more than most MPs.
“I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying.”
“The fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming.”
He said a civil servant asked him to delay compensation payments to victims of the Horizon IT scandal to save the government money ahead of the election.
Staunton also said Badenoch told him he was being removed from his job in January because someone had to “take the rap” for the affair.
And he accused her of failing to apologise to him after he first found out he was losing his job from Sky News.
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But Badenoch denied all three allegations made by Staunton, who she removed from his job in January.
She said there was “no evidence whatsoever” to back up his claim he had been asked to delay payments.
“The reality is my department has done everything it can to speed up compensation payments to victims,” she said.
The business secretary told MPs Staunton was dismissed not to “take the rap” but because there were “serious concerns about his behaviour”.
“While he was in post a formal investigation was launched into allegations regarding to Mr Staunton’s conduct – this included serious matters such as bullying,” she said.
And she said rather than failing to apologise for the way he found out he had lost his job she had been at “great pains to make my concerns about his conduct private”.
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“He has chosen to spread a series of falsehoods, provide made up anecdotes to journalists and leak discussions held in confidence,” she said.
“I would hope most people reading the interview in yesterday’s Sunday Times will see it what it was – a blatant attempt to seek revenge following dismissal.”
Badenoch said a formal record of her phone call with Staunton made by officials – when she told him he was being sacked – would be published.
The Horizon IT scandal saw hundreds of Post Office workers wrongly accused of fraud. More than 4,000 people are in line to receive compensation.
The Post Office prosecuted more than 700 workers for fraud and false accounting based on data from its faulty Fujitsu computer system between 2000 and 2015.
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Hundreds received criminal records, and had to do community service, wear electronic tags or serve jail time.
Hardline US presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has praised Kemi Badenoch for her fight against so-called “woke ideology”.
The Florida governor met the business secretary on a trip to Britain ahead of a potential run against Donald Trump to be the next Republican candidate.
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He singled out Badenoch for her views on Britain’s cultural debates, during an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.
The paper claimed his allies hope that Badenoch could be the next Margaret Thatcher to their new Ronald Reagan.
DeSantis praised the senior Tory, who is also minister for women and equalities, for her outspoken views.
He described “woke ideology” as “a war on the truth”, telling the paper: “When institutions get infected by woke ideology, it really corrupts the institutions.
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“We look at woke infiltrating schools as a problem, woke infiltrating bureaucracies as a problem and woke infiltrating corporate America as a problem. We say that Florida is where woke goes to die.”
DeSantis said Badenoch “complimented what we are doing in Florida” and added: “I commend her and her efforts to make sure that this is not corrupting British society.”
In a post on Twitter following the meeting, DeSantis said she is such a “strong, outspoken leader in the United Kingdom”.
“We share the same goal of spurring economic growth for our people and I look forward to continuing our relationship,” he added.
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.@CaseyDeSantis and I enjoyed meeting MP Kemi Badenoch, who is such a strong, outspoken leader in the United Kingdom.
We share the same goal of spurring economic growth for our people and I look forward to continuing our relationship. pic.twitter.com/hAwEw3BEyL
DeSantis has not announced his intention to run for the Republican nomination but is widely expected to do so.
In his interview, he also addressed speculation over his potential run at the White House, telling the paper: “I’m going to go through our legislative session, get the people’s business done. I’m still in the midst of that.
“I’ve got about another week or so of that, and then I have the Budget and everything. I’m not going to make any decision before then.
“But the end of that time is coming, it’s closer now than it was six months ago. So just stay tuned.”
Kemi Badenoch has been knocked out of the race to succeed Boris Johnson as Tory leader and prime minister.
The former frontbencher received the fewest votes of the four remaining candidates in the contest.
Rishi Sunak once again came out on top, with Penny Mordaunt retaining second place and Liz Truss staying in third spot.
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Badenoch won the backing of 59 MPs, up just one from the last round.
Truss got 86, up 15 on the third ballot, Mordaunt was up 10 votes to 92, with Sunak up three to 118.
The fifth and final ballot of MPs will take place tomorrow.
The two candidates receiving the highest number of votes will go into the final run-off, with the winner being decided by the 200,000 Tory members and announced on September 5.
A spokesperson for Sunak’s campaign said: “Rishi has continued to progress today because he is the candidate with the clearest plan to restore trust, rebuild the economy, reunite the country and because he is best placed to beat Labour at the next election.
“Every poll shows only Rishi can beat Starmer, and is the candidate the public think would make the best PM.
“MPs are also recognizing that Rishi has the best experience and plans to deal with the current economic situation.
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“Rishi will rebuild our economy by gripping inflation, so we can get our economy growing and unleash the full opportunities of post-Brexit Britain.”
Mordaunt said: “This afternoon colleagues once again put their trust in me and I cannot thank them enough. We are so nearly across the finish line. I am raring to go and excited to put my case to members across the country and win.
“I want to pay tribute to my friend Kemi Badenoch who electrified the leadership contest with her fresh thinking and bold policies.
“She and I both know that the old way of government isn’t working as it should. Voters want change and we owe it to them to offer a bold new vision for this country. Kemi’s passion for this showed and I’m glad she put herself forward to be heard.”
The government has refused to reject the controversial race report, which has been described as “incoherent, divisive and offensive”.
Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said she was “very proud” of the “independent” report and criticised the “appalling abuse” suffered by members of the commission on race and ethnic disparities.
She rejected calls to reject the review from Labour, which described it as a “shoddy, point-scoring polemic which ignores evidence and does not represent the country”.
The shadow equalities minister Marsa De Cordova said the report had been “discredited” by the British Medical Association, public health expert Sir Michael Marmot, trade unions, Baroness Doreen Lawrence and human rights experts at the United Nations.
On Monday, the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said the “reprehensible” report attempts to “normalise white supremacy” and could “fuel racism” in the UK.
But Badenoch told the Commons: “I’m very proud of it and of course we will not be withdrawing the report.
The equalities minister also said it was wrong to accuse people who argue for a different approach on how to address racial inequality as being “racism deniers” or “race traitors”.
She added: “The government even more firmly condemns the deeply personal and racialised attacks against the commissioners, which have included death threats.
“And in fact one member from the opposition benches presented commissioners as members of the Ku Klux Klan, an example of the very online racial hatred and abuse on which the report itself recommended more action be taken by government.”
House of Commons – PA Images via Getty Images
Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch
Badenoch also claimed the report does not deny institutional racism despite a government briefing on the eve of its publication making clear that “the well-meaning ‘idealism’ of many young people who claim the country is still institutionally racist is not borne out by the evidence”.
She told the Commons: “The report does not deny that institutional racism exists in the UK, rather the report did not find conclusive evidence of it in the specific areas it examined.”
De Cordova hit back: “If left unchallenged, this report will undo decades of progress made towards race equality in the UK. Since publication, this report has completely unravelled.
“Its cherry-picking of data is misleading and incoherent, its conclusions are ideologically motivated and divisive, it is absolutely clear to all of us on this side of the House and across civil society that this report has no credibility.”
She added: “It is reprehensible and I hope the minister will reject it today so that we can get on with the task of tackling institutional and structural racism which is the lived experience of many.”
Badenoch said the government would respond formally to the report by the summer.
She and the prime minister have established a new, inter-ministerial group to review the report’s 24 recommendations, which will be chaired by Michael Gove.
Some people call it “cancel culture”. Others call it accountability. Rightly or wrongly, your Twitter feed can get you in trouble at work, or worse. But we’ve now learned that members of our government are not held to the same standards as the rest of us.
It’s almost a month since Britain’s equalities minister posted an eight-tweet thread filled with false allegations about the conduct of HuffPost reporter Nadine White. Nadine had asked Kemi Badenoch, as one of parliament’s most senior Black MPs and the minister with the portfolio for race and inequality, why she hadn’t appeared in a video aimed at increasing uptake of the vaccine among Black people. She emailed the MP’s office, and the Treasury press team, where Badenoch also holds a ministerial role. Rather than respond via either of those channels, the minister fired off a Twitter tirade about how this routine press enquiry was a “sad insight into how some journalists operate”, describing it as “creepy and bizarre”. Nadine was forced to lock her Twitter account after she received abuse.
It took us a couple of hours to file a formal complaint with the Cabinet Office. It took them three and a half weeks to reply, but at last the government has seen fit to answer our complaint.
Their letter is short and to the point. “I note that the tweets were not issued from a government Twitter account but instead from a personal Twitter account,” writes Cabinet Office permanent secretary Alex Chisholm. “The minister is personally responsible for deciding how to act and conduct herself, and for justifying her own actions and conduct. As such, this is a matter on which the minister would be best placed to offer a response.”
The ministerial code states that “ministers of the Crown are expected to maintain high standards of behaviour and to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety”. But not, it seems, on their ministerial Twitter accounts.
We were not alone in mistakenly thinking that the minister’s verified Twitter account, in which she describes herself as “Treasury & Equalities Minister”, was in some way linked to her job
How stupid of us. It is cold comfort that we were not alone in mistakenly thinking that the minister’s verified Twitter account, in which she describes herself as “Treasury & Equalities Minister”, was in some way linked to her job. The National Union of Journalists called Badenoch’s original outburst about Nadine “frankly weird, completely out of order and an abuse of her privilege”. The Council of Europe’s Safety of Journalists Platform flagged the incident as a potential threat to media freedom under the European Convention on Human Rights. The European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, recorded the attack as a “violation of media freedom”. I wonder how many of Kemi Badenoch’s 40,000 followers are also under the impression that her Twitter account is a reflection of her professional role and work as an elected representative.
Also mistaken was No.10’s race adviser Samuel Kasumu, who was so upset about Kemi Badenoch’s behaviour that he handed in, but was then persuaded to withdraw, his resignation. Apparently unaware of that Kemi Badenoch’s official parliamentary Twitter account is only “personal”, he wrote: “I believe the Ministerial Code was breached. However, more concerning than the act was the lack of response internally. It was not OK or justifiable, but somehow nothing was said. I waited, and waited, for something from the senior leadership team to even point to an expected standard, but it did not materialise.”
Nadine is a reporter who has done crucial work for HuffPost UK on racial inequality in the UK, not least during the Covid pandemic. So it’s just as well that it was not in a ministerial capacity, but from her “personal Twitter account”, that the minister for equalities made a show of not understanding how news works. Had she only had her professional hat on, she might have remembered that journalists send literally hundreds of requests for comment every day to every institution in the UK in order to find out if a story is accurate. We don’t publish stories without doing this – indeed, no story was published in this case.
It is a little confusing that Kemi Badenoch published screenshots of messages sent to her professional address and the Treasury press office in a “personal” capacity. But it’s certainly a relief that, when she declared to her 39,000 followers that Nadine’s conduct was a “sad insight into how some journalists operate”, and accused HuffPost and Nadine of “looking to sow distrust”, she wasn’t speaking as a government minister – because these claims are not only unbecoming of a senior politician, but betray either an alarming ignorance of how the press fits into our democratic system or a cynical display of bad faith.
In the end, Kemi Badenoch broke her silence by contacting a journalist – not Nadine or anyone from HuffPost, but a reporter at her local paper, the Saffron Walden Reporter. In a statement, she repeated her defamatory allegations about Nadine, this time claiming we had “stoked” a “false story” on social media, claims that were withdrawn from publication when it was pointed out that there was no evidence for them.
This apparently did not trouble her ministerial employers in the Cabinet Office or No.10. Perhaps they might like to clarify whether someone is speaking in an official capacity when they begin a statement with the words “as Equalities Minister”.
It is absurd to any reasonable person to suggest the words of a minister are somehow less accountable if they are written by them on Twitter than a press release, or were given in an interview.
So who is responsible for the actions of the government’s ministers, if not the government? The Cabinet Office was clear: “This is a matter on which the minister would be best placed to offer a response.” No.10 agreed, with the prime minister’s press secretary saying it was “a matter for Kemi Badenoch” –although she added: “That would not be how we in No.10 would deal with these things.”
Kemi Badenoch’s office, however, does not agree that it her responsibility, telling Nadine this week: “She has nothing further to add beyond what is included in the letter sent earlier today from Alex Chisholm to your editor.” The same Alex Chisholm who made it very clear it was for her to respond.
This story is not just about a government machine that is out of touch with the realities of our digital lives. It is absurd to any reasonable person to suggest that the words of a minister are somehow less accountable if they are written by them on Twitter than if they appeared in a press release, or were given in an interview. If any member of the public were to tweet out emails sent to their work address, accompanied by a slew of false allegations, they would expect a swift call from HR. Indeed, someone might like to tell transport secretary Grant Shapps, who formally announces weekly updates to the government’s travel and quarantine policies through his own Twitter account, whose handle he literally read out in Parliament.
The ministerial code, which the government concluded Kemi Badenoch had not breached with her public attack on a journalist doing her job, is built around the loftily-titled Seven Principles of Public Life. Hopefully ministers are asked to read it when they enter office. “Accountability,” reads one principle. “Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny necessary to ensure this.”
We’re a long way from David Cameron’s famously cringeworthy comment that “too many tweets might make a twat” – ministers of Kemi Badenoch’s generation are all too aware of how useful a platform Twitter is for their political and personal profile. But where they are rightly accountable for their conduct as elected representatives elsewhere in their lives, this effectively allows them impunity online.
The Cabinet Office themselves “noted” to us in their response that “the prime minister’s press secretary has already provided comments on this matter”, suggesting a tacit endorsement of their belief that this is not how a minister should behave. But both institutions apparently felt it was not their place to get involved.
Like a parent banning their teenager’s laptop but leaving them with a phone, Whitehall feels dangerously out of touch in providing such an obvious loophole. Remember next time you see a prospective candidate or councillor cancelled online for tweets they sent at university – our government ministers are allowed to say whatever they like.
Jess Brammar is editor-in-chief of HuffPost UK. Follow her on Twitter @jessbrammar
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(@HelenMorganMP) 
