London: Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss lead the race to replace Boris Johnson as British Prime Minister after a second round of party voting knocked out one of the Brexiteer candidates.
The sun set on the campaign of Attorney General Suella Braverman after she failed to reach the 30-vote threshold of deputies needed to move on to the next round.
Nadhim Zahawi (top right), Jeremy Hunt (bottom left) and Suella Braverman (bottom right) have been eliminated from the Conservative leadership contest. Still (above): Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak and Kemi Badenoch, and (below) Tom Tugendhat and Liz Truss. Credit: Getty Images (digitally altered photo)
That leaves five candidates for the race, but Tom Tugendhat, who has the backing of the chairman of One Nation’s more moderate group of MPs, like Braverman, also lost votes between Wednesday’s first ballot and the second round, just crossing the line with 32 votes.
Kemi Badenoch, who is the Conservative far-right favorite, is also behind by just 49 votes.
Sunak, the favorite, was the only candidate to get more than 100 votes and only needs 19 more to automatically qualify for a final showdown.
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He is likely to face Mordaunt or Truss, the Secretary of State and a close friend of the former Australian High Commissioner to the UK, George Brandis.
Mordaunt is loved by members and is the candidate Sunak would least like to face. His shares continued to rise among MPs as he garnered 83 votes compared to Truss’s 63.
Remainer who has been recognized as Brexiteer, Truss has served in the cabinet of Johnson, David Cameron and Theresa May.