UK Tories Oust Mel Stride in Second Round of Leadership Contest

(Bloomberg) -- Former UK Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride was knocked out of the Conservative leadership contest, as ex Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick topped the ballot for a second week in a row.

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Stride received just 16 votes from the opposition party’s 121 Members of Parliament, unchanged from last week, when former Home Secretary Priti Patel was eliminated. Jenrick won 33 votes, followed by Former Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch on 28. Former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat, who served as security minister, tied on 21 votes apiece.

The result leaves four candidates to battle it out as the Conservative Party gears up for its annual conference starting Sept. 29 in Birmingham, with Jenrick now having usurped Badenoch as the bookmakers’ favorite. MPs will narrow the field down further to 2 politicians, who will then be put to a wider vote in the party membership. The winner will be announced Nov. 2.

Whoever wins the race to succeed former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as leader of the Tories faces an uphill battle to reunite opposing factions of the party. In the UK general election on July 4, the Conservatives collapsed to their worst-ever electoral defeat, underlining the damage wreaked by a chaotic period in government under former premiers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Sunak. Its members are now torn between moving further to the right, and winning back voters who have allied with the anti-migrant Reform party, and remaining a center-right party that appeals to a broader array of Britons.

A survey of 863 party members published earlier this month by the influential ConservativeHome website found Badenoch is the most popular candidate on 34%, almost double Jenrick on 18%. Tugendhat and Cleverly trailed on 13% and 11% respectively. Furthermore, in a two-person runoff, Badenoch would beat all other candidates, ConservativeHome said.

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