Kemi Badenoch has been polled as a favourite among grassroots members of the Conservative party, but they were denied the chance to make her the next Prime Minister after Tory MPs voted to eliminate her from the competition on Tuesday.
The field in the race to replace Boris Johnson as the leader of the Conservative Party and hence as leader of the largest group in Britain’s parliament and become the next Prime Minister was reduced to three contestants today, after Kemi Badenoch received the fewest votes in this round, seeing her eliminated.
Badenoch — 59 votes (+1)
Mordaunt — 92 votes (+10)
Sunak — 118 votes (+3)
Truss — 86 votes (+15)
356 votes cast out of 358 eligible
The outcome, where no clearly conservative candidate remains in the race to lead the Conservative Party again, illustrates the gulf between the Tory establishment which sits in Parliament and at this stage controls the leadership process, and the nationwide party with its roughly 180,000 members who will get to vote on the final two.
New figures from pollster YouGov illustrates the degree to which Badenoch — who spoke of reporting traditional conservative values to the party, fighting woke, and dealing with crime in the campaign — had become a favourite among members. Results published Tuesday lunchtime showed Badenoch beating all of the other candidates in a head-to-head race by varying degrees, which this process is working towards.
Conservative members polled by Yougov gave Badenoch a slender lead over Truss and Mordaunt, but a considerable 22-point lead over Sunak.
Yet members’ favourite Badenoch will now not be in the final competition to be decided by members, whereas MP’s favourite Sunak is practically guaranteed to be. Given the gulf on display between the people who run the Conservative party and the ordinary people who support it with their time and money, it’s not beyond reason this disconnect — which clearly resembles the gulf between very pro-Brexit Conservative voters in 2016 and the generally anti-Brexit Conservative leadership in 2016 — will attract attention once this competition is done with.