Conservative leadership rules: How Tories will choose the next Prime Minister
The timetable to thin down the field of contenders for next Prime Minister will be swift before two rivals go head-to-head
The next Conservative leader is being selected by a process initially run by the MPs, before the final two are put in front of the party's 200,000 members to select a winner.
Conservative leadership candidates will be forced to agree in writing that they will not withdraw from the contest if they are one of the final two names put to a vote of the party's members, under new plans to stop MPs stitching up who is the next prime minister.
Senior Tories are desperate to stop one of the candidates withdrawing from the contest as Dame Andrea Leadsom did in 2016, handing the leadership unchallenged to the overwhelming favourite Theresa May before members were given a chance to vote.
The Telegraph understands that leadership rules include a 'Leadsom clause', under which any candidate who makes it to the final two will have to submit themselves to a vote of party members.
One senior party source said each candidate would have to agree that they "must go to the ballot of members if you get to the last two" when they enter the contest.
The hope is that the rules - agreed by both the party's ruling 1922 committee and board - will allow the leadership field to be narrowed quickly to a handful of Conservative candidates by the weekend.
One senior Tory MP said the timetable for the selection process had to be truncated due to the fact that MPs start their summer holidays at the end of next week.
This meant that there was a "big disadvantage to candidates on the fringe" compared with household names. "Some of them are not even household names in their own houses," one senior Tory told the Telegraph.
Votes secured in second round...
- Kemi Badenoch - 49
- Suella Braverman - 27 - OUT
- Penny Mordaunt - 83
- Rishi Sunak - 101
- Liz Truss - 64
- Tom Tugendhat - 32
The face-off begins
Three sets of hustings occurred on Monday, July 18 - one by the 1922 Committee and open to all Tory MPs, one by the 92 group of senior Tory MPs and one by the anti-woke Common Sense group.
Officials at Conservative Central Office will now take over and organise a series of hustings in the party's regional bases around the country for members to be able to grill the two remaining contenders.
The hustings - which in 2019 were held in places like Belfast, York, Darlington, Perth, Nottingham and Cardiff - will allow thousands of voting members to question the final two.
Tory members will be encouraged to vote for their choice to be the next leader of the Conservative party by post by late August.
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