Tory MPs prepare for first ballot in contest to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader

Conservative MPs will take part in the first round of voting as they select a successor to Rishi Sunak.

The first ballot in the Tory leadership contest will take place on Wednesday afternoon, which will begin the process of narrowing the list of the current six candidates.

An announcement on the result of the first round is expected at about 3.30pm.

Further voting rounds will take place throughout September, aimed at thinning the ranks to four candidates who will set out their positions to Tory members at the party’s conference at the start of October.

After that, MPs will carry out further rounds of voting to select two final candidates for party members to choose between, with the result announced on November 2.

The field of six is made up of ex-ministers from the previous government: James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Dame Priti Patel, Tom Tugendhat, Mel Stride and Kemi Badenoch.

Several of the candidates have officially launched their campaigns in recent days as MPs returned to Parliament, and many have appeared on the airwaves and made speeches and visits to Tory activists across the country over the summer.

Mrs Badenoch, widely tipped as the bookmakers’ favourite, has sought to position herself as someone who will govern further to the political right, claiming in her Monday launch event that the Tories “talked right but governed left, sounding like Conservatives but acting like Labour”.

Mr Jenrick, widely seen as her closest rival for the job, has sought to centre his campaign on immigration, with a promise to introduce a binding cap on the number of legal migrants and to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

Former security minister Mr Tugendhat’s pitch is for a reset with the public, based around restoring honesty to politics, while Mr Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, has said his priorities as prime minister would be to boost national security, reduce migration and restore “confidence in capitalism”.

Dame Priti promised members she would get the Conservative Party back to its “winning ways” and touted her credentials in cabinet and her work on immigration and policing.

Mr Stride has not held a launch event, but has made frequent appearances speaking to broadcasters during the early weeks of the contest.