James Cleverly emerges as frontrunner in British Conservative leadership race | Politics News

The competition to succeed former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak runs until November 2nd.

Conservative MPs in Britain have excluded former security minister Tom Stimmehat from the party's leadership race, leaving three candidates still standing for the party's leadership following its disastrous election defeat in July.

Tugendhat received 20 votes in a vote of 120 parliamentarians, placing him in last place. Former Secretary of State James Cleverly led the poll with 39 votes.

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick received 31 votes and former business minister Kemi Badenoch received 30.

Another candidate will be thrown out of the race by lawmakers 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, won support with a high-profile speech at the Conservative conference last week. He urged the fractious party to “be more normal” and argued he had the skills to defeat Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labor Party and return the Conservatives to power at the next election in 2029.

Jenrick, a hardliner who has called for Britain to make deep immigration cuts and repeal European human rights laws, had been considered the frontrunner since the contest began in July.

Jenrick raised his profile when he resigned as immigration minister under Sunak over what he said was a “fatally flawed” Rwanda plan to send asylum seekers to the African country. Then he said it wasn't sturdy enough.

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

Badenoch has been criticized by some for her outspoken views on Brexit and what she calls “identity politics,” but revered by others. She said she wanted the party to return to “authentic conservatism” and stop “talking on the right and governing on the left.”

The competition to replace former prime minister Rishi Sunak runs until November 2 after Conservative members cast final votes for a new leader tasked with turning around the fortunes of a party that was defeated in the November 4 election. was decimated by the Labor Party in July.

In the party's last controversial leadership election in mid-2022, members chose Liz Truss over Rishi Sunak. Truss resigned as prime minister after just 49 days in office as her tax cut plans rattled financial markets and hit the value of the pound. The party then chose 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, falling to 121.