Priti Patel Knocked Out Of Tory Leadership Race

Priti Patel has been knocked out of the Conservative Party leadership race (Alamy)

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Priti Patel has been eliminated from the race to be the next leader of the Conservative Party.

Patel was one of six candidates running to succeed Rishi Sunak as Leader of the Opposition after he led the Tories to defeat at the July General Election. The others are Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick Mel Stride, and Tom Tugendhat. They are all former Cabinet ministers.

In a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Patel wished every Tory candidate success in the race and urged them to "unite" around Conservative values.

“I’ve enjoyed spending the summer with thousands of so many of our dedicated and hardworking party members. The support and affection they have shown me over the summer has been heartwarming and truly humbling, and I am grateful to everyone who has supported, worked on or volunteered for my campaign," her statement said.

“I have placed party reform at the heart of my pitch for the leadership of the Conservative and Unionist Party and did that for a reason.”

On Wednesday, Conservative MPs held a first round of voting to whittle down the list of six leadership candidates to five.

The candidates received the number of following votes:

Badenoch: 22
Cleverly: 21
Jenrick: 28
Patel: 14
Stride: 16
Tugendhat: 17

The second round of voting will take place next week where MPs will whittle the number of candidates down to four.

The four remaining candidates will have the opportunity to set out their pitch to Tory members at the party's Autumn conference, which will take place in Birmingham between 29 September and 2 October.

Following conference, Tory MPs will vote again to reduce the number of candidates to the final two.

The winner, and the next Leader of the Opposition, will be chosen by the party members in early November.

As well as opposing Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whoever succeeds Sunak will manage a party of 121 MPs — the smallest cohort any Conservative party leader will have overseen in more than two centuries. More than 20 per cent of that figure are new MPs elected in July.

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