Priti Patel knocked out of Tory leadership race, as Robert Jenrick comes out on top in first round

The first round of voting in the Conservative leadership contest has seen former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel knocked out of the race, as ITV News' Political Correspondent Carl Dinnen reports

Former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel has been eliminated from the Conservative leadership race, as Robert Jenrick won the first round of voting.

MPs voted on Wednesday afternoon to narrow the list of candidates vying for the leadership to five, ahead of further rounds of voting over the next two months.

Former Immigration minister Jenrick came out on top during the first round, with 28 votes, while Patel received only 14.

Second favourite in the line-up was Kemi Badenoch on 22 votes, followed by James Cleverly on 21, Tom Tugendhat on 17 and Mel Stride on 16.

The Conservative Party suffered a devastating defeat in the election, as former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak oversaw the worst result for the party in its parliamentary history.

Sunak has stayed on as an interim leader of the opposition, while the party searches for its next leader.

The next rounds of voting will take place throughout September, aimed at whittling the candidates down to four, who will then set out their positions to Tory members at the party’s conference at the start of October.

After that, MPs will carry out further rounds of voting to select two final candidates for party members to choose between.

The final two are then voted on by party members in an online ballot, with the winner crowned on November 2.

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Some 30 Conservative MPs gathered in a parliamentary committee room for the result of the first ballot, a quarter of their total strength in the Commons.

Patel urged fellow Tories to “unite around our Conservative values” in a post on X.“I wish my fellow candidates well with the rest of the leadership campaign and thank them for the good-spirited debated we have had", she wrote.

Badenoch claimed the result of the first round of voting showed there was “huge support” for her campaign.

She added: “It’s time to deal with hard truths today, rather than big problems tomorrow.

“I look forward to making the case for renewal around the country, with colleagues and members.”

Tugendhat said it was a “privilege” to have made it through the first round and paid tribute to eliminated candidate Patel.

"Kemi and Robert are all friends and good Conservatives. However, only I can deliver the Conservative revolution that our party and our nation need.”

Cleverly said “momentum” was on his campaign’s side, adding: “We can only unite our party with Conservative values and I am ready to lead, and win, the next general election.”

Several of the candidates have officially launched their campaigns in recent days as MPs returned to Parliament, and many have appeared on the airwaves and made speeches and visits to Tory activists across the country over the summer.

Badenoch, widely tipped as the bookmakers’ favourite, has sought to position herself as someone who will govern further to the political right, claiming in her Monday launch event that the Tories “talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour”.

Jenrick, widely seen as her closest rival for the job, has sought to centre his campaign on immigration, with a promise to introduce a binding cap on the number of legal migrants and to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Former security minister Tugendhat’s pitch is for a reset with the public, based around restoring honesty to politics, while Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, has said his priorities as prime minister would be to boost national security, reduce migration and restore “confidence in capitalism”.

Stride has not held a launch event, but has made frequent appearances speaking to broadcasters during the early weeks of the contest.

Dame Priti had promised members she would get the Conservative Party back to its “winning ways” and touted her credentials in cabinet and her work on immigration and policing.

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