The five contenders battling to become the next leader of the Conservative Party

Five candidates are in the running to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader of the Conservative Party.

Dame Priti Patel earlier became the first potential leader to be eliminated from the competition during a vote by Conservative MPs.

Next week, MPs will narrow the number of remaining candidates from five to four, who will then present their proposal to members at the party conference in Birmingham.

In a series of additional rounds of voting, MPs will then narrow the field to two final candidates, with party members then choosing the winner.

Kemi Badenoch

Born in London and raised in Nigeria, Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke became the Conservative MP for Saffron Walden in 2017 under her married name Badenoch.

Known for her strong opinions and no-nonsense style, her political hero growing up in Nigeria was Margaret Thatcher, according to Blue Ambition, a new biography by Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft.

She returned to the UK at the age of 16 to study for her A levels before gaining a Masters in Computer Systems Engineering from the University of Sussex.

“It has become more conservative partly in reaction to the very spoiled, privileged and pretentious university-educated metropolitan elite,” she said on a Spectator podcast.

Before entering politics, the 44-year-old mother of three worked in banking and IT.

She held a series of ministerial posts under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, who promoted her to business secretary.

But it is arguably thanks to her other former role – as Minister for Women and Equalities – that she has become the darling of the modern conservative right for her stance on trans rights.

She regularly comes top of polls of Conservative Party members conducted by the Conservative Home website.

She first ran for Conservative Party leader in 2022 after Boris Johnson's resignation and came fourth despite a relatively quiet start to the race.

Launch of its latest offerShe said the Conservative Party must “stop acting like the Labour Party” to regain power.

James Cleverly

Considered part of the “moderate” wing of the Conservative Party, James Cleverly has been an MP since 2015, where he became Foreign Secretary and then Home Secretary.

Born and raised in south London to an English father and a Sierra Leonean mother, who worked as an NHS midwife, he was privately educated, despite the family's modest means, and joined the army straight after school.

His full-time military career was cut short by a leg injury, but he remains an officer in the Army Reserve.

Like his leadership rival Mrs Badenoch, the 55-year-old father-of-two cut his political teeth as a member of the London Assembly.

Before entering politics, he had a career in magazine and digital media, before creating his own company.

A sociable figure, who appreciates jokes, He found himself in a sticky situation last year for allegedly making a derogatory remark about Stockton-on-Tees in the Commons (something he denied).

He He also had to apologize for joking about drugging his wife's drink. at a reception in Downing Street.

He once told the Huffington Post that his biggest flaw was: “I talk too much and sometimes I talk a little too bluntly, which I think people like until they don't.”

He spoke of his desire to “unite” the Conservatives and urged the party to “think and act like Conservatives again”.

He is also a strong defender of the previous government's policy of sending some asylum seekers to Rwanda, and has said he would bring it back if he became prime minister.

Robert Jenrick

Robert Jenrick, 42, has reinvented himself as a right-winger after starting his political career as a more centrist figure and close ally of former prime minister Rishi Sunak.

Last year he resigned as immigration minister, saying Mr Sunak's emergency legislation on Rwanda did not go far enough.

And since then, he has spoken out about what he sees as his party's failure to deliver on promises to reduce immigration when it was in power.

In particular, he called on the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

This has allowed him to attract the support of MPs previously loyal to his former boss at the Interior Ministry, Suella Braverman, who ruled herself out of the party leadership race before it even began.

The 42-year-old father-of-three was a corporate lawyer – and director of Christie's auction house – before entering politics as MP for Newark in 2014.

Her Conservative Leadership Presentation is that the party must face hard truths – and only it can bring about the changes needed to win the next election.

In 2020, he was embroiled in controversy over his decision as housing secretary to grant Planning permission granted for a housing development project in east London linked to a conservative donor.

In 2023, he made headlines again for ordering that murals depicting cartoon characters at a reception centre for asylum-seeking children in Dover be painted over.

More recently, he admitted to using the weight-loss drug Ozempic, but said he “didn't particularly enjoy it” and continued to lose weight through more traditional means.

Mel Stride

Perhaps the least known of the five candidates to the general public, Mel Stride has quietly built a base of support among Conservative MPs.

A close ally of Rishi Sunak, the 62-year-old was one of a handful of ministers given media interviews during the general election campaign.

A primary school pupil in Portsmouth, he followed a well-trodden path from a degree in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University, where he was elected president of the Union, to the upper echelons of the Conservative Party.

A father of three, he founded Venture Marketing Group, a company that organises trade fairs and exhibitions, before becoming an MP in 2010.

After narrowly retaining his Central Devon seat by 61 votes in the election, Mr Stride said his party needed to “think long and hard” about its poor performance before it could once again become the “natural party of government”.

Launch his candidacy for party leadershipHe said his party needed to “restore trust with the electorate”.

Mr Stride is currently shadow work and pensions secretary and cited his roles as chairman of the Treasury Select Committee and leader of the House of Commons as evidence of his ability to command “respect” within the party.

Tom Tugendhat

A former territorial army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tom Tugendhat is generally considered a centrist.

But the shadow security minister has sought to boost his credentials with right-wing MPs by taking a hard line on immigration.

HAS launch of his leadership campaignHe has pledged to cap net migration from the UK at 1 million a year and has not ruled out leaving the European Convention on Human Rights if he comes to power.

The 51-year-old had already lost a leadership race against Liz Truss, in which he presented himself as a candidate for a “fresh start” and “bridging the divide over Brexit”.

This time he pledged to “make the Conservative Party a serious force again” and made a point of apologising for his party's conduct when in government.

The son of a High Court judge, who was educated at the prestigious private St Paul's School before studying theology at Bristol University, he became MP for Tonbridge in the 2015 general election.

A father of two, he voted to remain in the EU in the Brexit referendum in 2016. He was highly critical of NATO's withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.