The Tory leadership contest’s first round of voting will begin on Wednesday, with the eight candidates who have made the ballot needing to secure a minimum of 30 votes to proceed to the next round.
Voting will open for Tory MPs at 13:30 BST on Wednesday afternoon, with results expected to be announced at 17:00 BST.
This round of votes will be the first of several over the coming days, to narrow the candidates down to a final two by Thursday next week (July 21).
Over the summer, the Conservative party membership – amounting to some 160,000 – will then vote on their preferred candidate to decide the winner, who will be revealed on September 5.
The eight candidates who have made the ballot include former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, attorney general Suella Braverman, ex-cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt, trade minister Penny Mordaunt, former chancellor Rishi Sunak, foreign secretary Liz Truss, backbencher Tom Tugendhat and chancellor Nadhim Zahawi.
Former health secretary Sajid Javid and junior minister Rehman Chishti were the two to have dropped out at the first hurdle.
It is former chancellor Rishi Sunak who has secured the most support among his fellow Conservative MPs thus far, supported also by deputy PM Dominic Raab and transport secretary Grant Shapps.
Two other cabinet ministers, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries, have thrown their weight behind Liz Truss, while senior Tory and former cabinet minister Michael Gove has backed Kemi Badenoch.
Foreign Secretary Ms Truss bagged endorsements from cabinet ministers and Johnson loyalists Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries.
Although the Sunak campaign is currently running as the most successful, the former chancellor’s tax policies differ greatly from the other candidates, with Sunak championing an approach of “economic realism” compared to the rest who are offering swathes of tax cuts.
Sunak outlined that getting inflation under control had to be “the number one economic priority” before alleviating the tax burden, assuring that tax cuts were “a matter of when, not if” but had to be done responsibly.
Sunak’s policies as chancellor have come under attack from Truss’ backer, Rees-Mogg, who labelled his tax decisions “of the left rather than on the right.”
Penny Mordaunt, who launched her campaign for the leadership on Wednesday, has also promised to cut tax by slashing VAT on fuel and raising the thresholds for income tax payments, and bring the Conservative government back toward a “small state, lox tax, personal responsibility” approach.
The promises of tax cuts made by many of the candidates have also come under fire from opposition quarters, with Labour suggesting that they would lead to a budget deficit of £24 billion and see public sector debt soar to 84 per cent of GDP within five years, a development which would breach the Tory government’s own fiscal charter.
