Madelaine Gray

In the late afternoon on Tuesday, Sir Graham Brady announced the eight Conservative MPs who have secured the required backing to make it onto the first ballot for Tory leadership in the wake of Boris Johnson’s resignation.

Brady, who serves as chairman of the 1922 Committee (formally the Conservative Private Members’ Committee), also said that the ballot would take place between 1:30 pm and 3:30 pm the next day (Wednesday 13th).

Three leadership hopefuls failed to gain the support of the 20 MPs needed to make it onto the ballot. They are Rehman Chishti, Grant Shapps, and Sajid Javid.

Javid in particular had been a key figure in the push to remove Johnson from leadership, his resignation in part sparking last week’s flurry and chaos. He has, however, struggled to escape ongoing scrutiny into his tax conduct while working at Treasury, which was reported by The Independent on Monday.

The candidates who successfully found at least the required 20 backers were Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, Penny Mordaunt, Kemi Badenoch, Tom Tugendhat, Suella Braverman, Jeremy Hunt, and Nadhim Zahawi.

Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak stands as the rumoured favourite. It is true that he has a significantly larger number of backers than the other candidates: 45, including Dominic Raab, Gavin Williamson, and Matt Hancock.

While Sunak was long seen as a Johnson supporter, his resignation was in many respects the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’, sparking the day of resignations on 5th July that will go down in history. Many remaining Johnson loyalists have criticised Sunak’s resignation as treachery, and many are pledging an “Anything-but-Rishi” approach to the contest.

Sunak has slammed the “fairytales” of other candidates who have proposed multibillion-pound tax cuts, rather than having to face the economic reality. In turn, his critics have stated that Sunak’s leadership would lead to a “high-tax” country.

Liz Truss

Liz Truss has proved popular with Johnson loyalists; both Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries have come out in support of the foreign secretary, in part to block the ambitions of Sunak. Rees-Mogg cited her opposition to Sunak’s “higher taxes”, and Dorries commented that she is probably a “stronger Brexiteer than both of us” — though Truss voted to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum.

Truss has long presented herself as an heir to the Thatcher legacy, with her economic pitch focusing on low taxes, higher defence spending, and more lucrative trade deals.

Penny Mordaunt

Somewhat of a surprising candidate, Penny Mordaunt is politically best known as serving as the first female defence secretary (for a total of 85 days, before being sacked by Johnson). However, she’s possibly more recognisable as having participated in ITV’s diving show Splash.

In her pitch for leadership, Mordaunt tweeted “Our leadership has to change. It needs to become a little less about the leader and a lot more about the ship”. In the wake of the tenure of a notoriously individualistic and characterful politician, it is possible that this commitment to the party is why Mordaunt is polling so well amongst Conservative party members.

Kemi Badenoch

Kemi Badenoch has positioned herself as a figure at the forefront of the “war on woke”, and a rising star of the party’s increasingly populist right-wing—she has promised lower taxes, and to introduce a “micro-state”.

Badenhoch made the headlines this week after using the gender-neutral toilets of her campaign launch facility as a political stunt—by labelling them with handwritten signs saying ‘Men’ and ‘Ladies’.

The former levelling up and equalities minister has Michael Gove amongst her backers.

Tom Tugendhat

A former Army lieutenant colonel, Tom Tugendhat is pitching himself as the “clean start” that many in the country—and the Conservative party—are craving.

Promising an “unrelenting focus” on the cost-of-living crisis, Tugendhat has shirked his image as the most left-wing candidate in the contest by stating that taxes “bluntly, are too high“.

Suella Braverman

Suella Braverman served as Attorney General in Johnson’s Cabinet, and was long considered an arch-loyalist—but nevertheless proceeded to pitch for his job while he is still in office.

Braverman, a firm Brexiteer, has vowed to withdraw Britain from the European Court of Human Rights should she become party leader. Like Badenoch, Braverman has pledged to lead the country out of an “identity politics rabbit-hole“.

Notably, Braverman has taken a hard line on environmental and climate issues, stating that she will suspend the UK’s current net-zero target.

Jeremy Hunt

Jeremy Hunt lodged an unsuccessful bid for leadership against Johnson during the last ballot, and is now running again with a strong promotion of his distance from the current prime minister, having never served in his Cabinet.

Hunt has long since been considered a figure on the left of the Conservative party, but his pitch for leadership promises the lowest rate of business taxes in the Western world.

In the wake of the fall of Roe v. Wade in the United States, many individuals are pressing leadership hopefuls to publicly give their stance. While Hunt has remained tight-lipped about culture war issues that other candidates are centring in their campaigns, he has historically argued in favour of slashing the legal time frame for abortion in half.

Nadhim Zahawi

Nadhim Zahawi has recently gained notoriety for his promotion by Johnson to the role of chancellor, before lobbying the prime minister to resign merely hours later. This hasn’t boosted his popularity amongst all members of the party.

Zahawi is pledging tax cuts, and pitched culture war woke mobs as “radical activists”.

Polling

A poll from Opinium suggests that Sunak and Truss are the favourites of Conservative party members to face off on the final ballot. Opinium says:

Grassroots polls by Conservative Home, however, put Mordaunt well ahead of any other candidate.

An expert on BBC News on Tuesday evening predicted that the final ballot will be between Sunak and Mordaunt, but made no prediction yet as to the future leader of the Conservative party, and the country.

Featured image courtesy of NCVO London via Flickr. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.

LLB Law with Politics student at Royal Holloway, University of London. Editor in Chief of RHUL's The Orbital.

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