Kemi Badenoch regains momentum in Tory leadership race as Mel Stride eliminated

Kemi Badenoch has regained momentum in the race to become the next Tory leader, while Mel Stride has been eliminated.

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick won the second round of voting in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak, but Ms Badenoch picked up the most votes, narrowing the gap slightly.

She also saw off a challenge from ex-home secretary James Cleverly, keeping him in third.

Seen as the early favourite, Ms Badenoch appeared to stumble last week when she came second in the first round of voting.

But she gained some ground on Mr Jenrick in the latest round, picking up six votes, the most of any contestant, to his five.

The results of the second ballot saw Mr Jenrick receive the backing of 33 MPs, Ms Badenoch 28, Mr Cleverly 21, Tom Tugendhat 21 and Mr Stride 16.

As the MP with the lowest number of votes, Mr Stride automatically leaves the race.

The remaining four contenders will now proceed to the upcoming Conservative Party conference, which will be dominated by the contest.

All four will give a speech during the week-long event in Birmingham.

After that MPs will choose who to put forward to the final two, with rank-and-file party members making the final choice of leader, who will be unveiled on 2 November.

After the vote, Ms Badenoch said she was “grateful” to be in the top two and pledged to use the conference to show she was a leader who has “conviction, strength of purpose and the knowledge to rewire our broken political system”.

Mr Jenrick said the Tory party had to be “painfully honest” about the mistakes it made in power and “bring forward the serious answers” to the challenges facing the country.

Mr Cleverly said he was “proud” to have made it through to the next stage, while Mr Tugendhat praised Mr Stride saying he had run a “great campaign”.

A source in the Tugendhat campaign said they were “confident” the majority of Mr Stride’s votes would go to him. They said: “Tom has all the momentum now going to Birmingham.”

Last month Mr Jenrick sparked outrage after he said that people shouting “Allahu Akbar” on London streets “should be arrested immediately”.

As a minister, he also came under fire after it emerged that he ordered a Mickey Mouse mural at an asylum reception centre to be painted over.

He resigned from Mr Sunak’s government last year, accusing the then PM of not going far enough with his controversial Rwanda policy, to deport asylum seekers on a one-way ticket to the African country.

Last week he made clear he still took a hardline on the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The former home office minister, who has emerged as the leading candidate for the Tory right wing, hit out at claims from his rivals that he was looking for “easy answers” by saying he would call to leave the convention.

He has claimed that reforming the ECHR would take decades and that if voters give the Tories a second look they “will not give us another chance” if they fail to fix the issue of immigration.

Ms Badenoch launched her leadership campaign with a pledge to “not shut up” as she reignited a row with Doctor Who actor David Tennant about trans issues.

The shadow housing secretary railed against the “cultural establishment trying to keep Conservatives down” and promised to “take the fight to Doctor Who or whoever and not let them try to keep us down”.

In a video teeing up her leadership launch, she used a clip of the actor saying he wished she would “shut up” and that he hoped for a world in which the MP “doesn’t exist anymore”.

A Labour spokesperson said: “The Tories whittled down a list of five people who played key roles in 14 years of chaos and decline, to four people who played key roles in 14 years of chaos and decline.”

Dame Priti Patel was eliminated in the first round of voting.

Source: UK Politics - www.independent.co.uk