Braverman out of contest as Sunak maintains lead – second ballot resultsSir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, is announcing the results now.
Rishi Sunak – 101 (up 13)
Penny Mordaunt – 83 (up 16)
Liz Truss – 64 (up 14)
Kemi Badenoch – 49 (up 9)
Tom Tugendhat – 32 (down 5)
Suella Braverman – 27 (down 5)
That means Braverman is out.
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My colleague Aubrey Allgretti posted this yesterday giving the timings for the remaining parliamentary ballots in the Tory leadership contest.
Set your watches ⏰
Here’s the timings for the rest of the Tory leadership contest:
Thursday – second vote, result 3pm
Next Monday – third vote, result 8pm
Next Tuesday – fourth vote, result 3pm
Next Wednesday – fifth and final vote, 4pm
Then, we’ll have our final two! pic.twitter.com/kenNzxvOBc
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) July 13, 2022 According to the Spectator’s Fraser Nelson, bookmakers’ odds suggests Penny Mordaunt is now more than twice as likely to be the next Tory leader as Rishi Sunak.
David Davis, the former Brexit secretary who is backing Penny Mordaunt for next Tory leader, has described the Lord Frost comments about Mordauant (see 9.20am and 11.31am) as part of a “black ops” operation. He told Sky News:
It’s absolutely clockwork – you get to the point that somebody gets ahead and looks to be the real challenger, and then the black op starts, the incoming fire starts.
A supporter of Liz Truss said her campaign had picked “solid momentum” in what had been a “difficult round” for them, PA Media reports. Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, said there was a limited pool of support they could have plausibly won over from the supporters of the candidates eliminated in the first round.
This is very much on the trajectory we thought. We are attracting broad support from people across the party.
Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary and Liz Truss supporter, has urged MPs to unite behind Truss. Her message seems to be aimed particularly at Suella Braverman’s supporters, who now must choose someone else to vote for, and supporters of Kemi Badenoch, another rightwinger. The point about Truss being someone “who actually has the ability to lead the country” seems to be a reference to Penny Mordaunt’s relative inexperience.
Great result for @trussliz
Now is the time for us all to unite behind a candidate who actually has the ability to lead the country as PM.
As Foreign sec, she imposed the very toughest sanctions on Putin. That took serious ability and sheer grit. #LizForLeader
— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) July 14, 2022 Tom Tugendhat’s team say he is not about to pull out, Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall reports.
Doesn’t sound as if Tom Tugendhat is dropping out. Spokesperson: “Tom is in it to win it. He can’t wait to set out his positive vision for Britain and offer the party, and more importantly the country, the clean start we need.”
— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) July 14, 2022 The Liz Truss campaign has issued a statement praising Suella Braverman for the campaign she led. That is a transparent way of appealing for the support of the MPs backing Braverman. A Truss campaign spokesperson said:
Today’s results show that Liz Truss is attracting a wide range of supporters from across the Conservative party.
Suella Braverman ran a campaign that she can rightly be proud.
As Liz set out in her speech now is the time for MPs to unite behind the candidate who will cut taxes, deliver the real economic change we need, continue to deliver the benefits of Brexit and ensure Putin loses in Ukraine.
Liz Truss has the experience to deliver from day one, grow our economy and support working families and then beat Labour.
ITV’s Daniel Hewitt says Penny Mordaunt’s team are now pushing the arugment that she is such a frontrunner that not putting her on the ballot would be a snub to party members.
Spoke to a couple of MPs in Team Mordaunt pushing the argument that polls show Penny is clearly popular with the Tory membership and they won’t be happy if they’re denied a chance to vote for her. Say they want local association chairs to make the point to their MPs.
— Daniel Hewitt (@DanielHewittITV) July 14, 2022 Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters used a similar argument in 2015. It was effective because some of them used social media to put pressure on MPs to nominate Corbyn, and under the Labour system MPs can nominate a candidate to put them on the members’ ballot without having to back them personally. The Conservative system is different, making it easier for Tory MPs to resist this sort of pressure from the grassroots.
Second round ballot results – snap analysisIn an exhaustive ballot process like this one, a single result can sometimes dramatically shift the assessment of who is likely to win. That happened yesterday, when Penny Mordaunt achieved a breakthrough. Today’s result is harder to interpret, but here goes.
1) Penny Mordaunt still has the momentum with her, and that counts particularly at this stage of the contest. (That’s because MPs have a strong incentive jump aboard a winning bandwagon, of obvious career reasons. In a ballot of party members, that factor does not apply.) She has gained the most extra votes.
2) Tom Tugendhat will come under strong pressure to concede. He said earlier today that he would not (see 11.54am), and if he stays in he will get the chance to take part in the weekend TV debates. But the removal of Suella Braverman is going to release 27 Tory right votes which potentially could be very useful to Liz Truss. If Tugendhat were to pull out now, he would release 32 votes that would probably go to Rishi Sunak or Mordaunt – less rightwing candidates. Now is the time when that would be valuable. That’s because …
3) Sunak could pass the crucial 120 mark in the next round if Tugendhat were to pull out. Without Tugendhat pulling out, it would be much harder. Once a candidate has got 120 votes, which is just over a third of the electorate, as long as they do not lose support, they are mathematically guaranteed a place in the final two. And if Sunak were able to get to that point before any other candidate, he would go into the members’ ballot with some momentum. Potentially there will be three more rounds of voting before the shortlist of two is ready for the members’ ballot.
4) It is hard – but not impossible – to see how Liz Truss and Mordaunt both manage to overtake Sunak to make it onto the final ballot. To reach the 120 threshold, Mordaunt needs 37 more votes and Truss needs 56 more votes. That would be 93 in total. Assuming the next candidates to fall out are Tugendhat and Badenoch, with the Bravernman votes already released, that makes 108 votes potentially up for grabs. It is hard to imagine that Sunak won’t be able to get at least 19 of them (particularly the Tugendhat ones) which would get him over the line. If MPs were to decide that Sunak would have no chance in the final ballot, potentially those votes could stampede en masse to Mordaunt or Truss. But MPs are not abandoning Sunak yet, and even though some polling suggests Sunak would lose amongst the members to both Mordaunt and Truss, an effective campaign could turn that round. That is why MPs are cautious about putting too much reliance on that data.
5) So it still looks probable that the two names on the final ballot will be Sunak and Mordaunt.
Braverman out of contest as Sunak maintains lead – second ballot resultsSir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee, is announcing the results now.
Rishi Sunak – 101 (up 13)
Penny Mordaunt – 83 (up 16)
Liz Truss – 64 (up 14)
Kemi Badenoch – 49 (up 9)
Tom Tugendhat – 32 (down 5)
Suella Braverman – 27 (down 5)
That means Braverman is out.
And this is from Sky’s Jon Craig.
Not so many MPs in Committee Room 14 this time for Sir Graham Brady’s announcement of round two result. Well, it is Thursday afternoon. Filling up a bit now, but more journalists than MPs.
— Jon Craig (@joncraig) July 14, 2022 This is from the Sun’s Noa Hoffman.
Observation from talking to MPs supporting various campaigns. Those supporting Penny from the v beginning have had SO much excitement & enthusiasm about her. Genuinely jubilant at the prospect of a PM PM. Others supporters enthusiastic too but hype from Penny backers stands out
— Noa Hoffman (@hoffman_noa) July 14, 2022 This is from my colleague Aubrey Allegretti, who is in the committee room where the results will be announced.
More journalists than MPs in the 1922 Committee room where we’ll get the second Tory leadership result in 7 minutes.
— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) July 14, 2022 And here is a picture of the room when the result was announced yesterday.
Graham Brady announcing the result of the ballot yesterday. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PAGraham Brady due to announce second ballot results at 3pmThe results of the second ballot are now only 10 minutes away.
Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, will announce the results at 3pm.
Voting in the parliamentary stage of the Tory leadership contest could carry on until Wednesday, the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope reports.
NEW The final two candidates in the Conservative leadership race will not be known until **Wednesday evening** next week, I understand.
Members of the 1922 committee have decided to have three ballots on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday next week after #PMQs. #ToryLeadershipRace
— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) July 14, 2022