Kemi Badenoch is expected to officially launch her bid for the Tory leadership tomorrow to swell the field of candidates to six.
The shadow housing secretary is set to join Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat and James Cleverly in the race to replace Rishi Sunak.
Ms Badenoch was reportedly the first Tory MP to secure the 10 nominations needed to join the contest, despite her now being expected to be the last to formally enter.
Suella Braverman, the ex-home secretary who was also touted as a likely contender, is said to be at risk of failing to win the support of the required number of backers.
There are already signs that the third Conservative contest in two years, which doesn’t conclude until November 3, will be another divisive affair.
Ms Badenoch, the bookies’ favourite, is facing claims that a ‘dirty dossier’ on her has been circulated.
The Guardian newspaper is also reportedly poised to publish a long-running investigation detailing claims about her behaviour in government.
Ms Badenoch’s team dismissed it as the product of claims by a disgruntled former special adviser.
Kemi Badenoch is expected to officially launch her bid for the Tory leadership tomorrow to swell the field of candidates to six
Former home secretary James Cleverly and ex-security minister Tom Tugendhat have already joined the contest
Ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick and former work and pensions secretary Mel Stride are also bidding for the Tory crown
Priti Patel, the former home secretary, last night became the fifth Conservative MP to enter the leadership contest
Suella Braverman, who was also touted as a likely contender, is said to be at risk of failing to win the support of the required number of backers
According to The Sunday Times, Ms Badenoch will tell MPs and party members she is ‘listening’ in an echo of Hillary Clinton’s ‘listening tour’ before she ran for president.
A close aide told the newspaper: ‘We’ve had too much of trying to put our faith in one person and expecting it to be enough to see the party through.
‘She wants this to be a collaborative exercise, so has spent a long time since the election result just speaking to people and listening to what they’re saying.’
Ms Badenoch recently addressed claims that a ‘dirty dossier’ was circulating about her.
She hit out at Westminster’s focus on the ‘petty and puerile’, adding: ‘We can do better than this and I will be saying and writing more about how, in due course.’
An official on a rival campaign said Ms Badenoch’s status as the bookies’ favourite had made her a target, telling the newspaper: ‘Frontrunners always get shot at. The game is kill Kemi.’
Dame Priti last night became the fifth Conservative MP to enter the leadership contest.
She wrote on Twitter: ‘I am standing to be the new Leader of the Conservative Party. We must unite to win!
‘I can lead us in opposition and unite our party and get us match fit for the next election, with unity, experience and strength.’
The former home secretary said she could deliver the ‘experienced and strong’ leadership needed to unite the Tories’ disparate factions, in an article for The Telegraph on Saturday.
As leader she would use the ‘huge talent pool…of Conservative Party members’ to ‘solve the big challenges that Labour, the Lib Dems and Reform don’t have answers to’, she wrote.
She said the party was a ‘grassroots movement’ that should work from from the bottom up rather than from the top down.
She wrote that ‘rebuilding trust with an electorate who have stopped listening to us will be tough’ and that the party must ‘reflect honestly on what went wrong’ while avoiding a ‘soap opera of finger-pointing and self-indulgence’.
Dame Priti became an MP in 2010 and served in Cabinet positions under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, as international development secretary and home secretary respectively.
In her article she echoed language used by Mr Johnson as she wrote of turning Conservative values into ‘oven-ready’ policies and getting the party ‘match fit’ to win.
Dame Priti is a longstanding Eurosceptic and prominent figure on the right of the party.
As home secretary she launched a points-based immigration system and signed the agreement with Rwanda to send asylum seekers to the country.
She resigned as home secretary after Liz Truss became Tory leader.
Nominations close at 2.30pm on Monday with contenders needing a proposer, seconder and eight other MP backers to stand.
The parliamentary party will narrow the field down to four, who will make their case at the Conservative Party conference, which runs from September 29 to October 2.
The final two, picked by the parliamentary party, will then go to a vote of party members in an online ballot that will close on October 31 with the result announced on November 2.
Dame Priti is the least popular contender, at minus 28 points and seven points respectively, according to polling by Savanta carried out between July 19 and 21.
Mr Tugendhat is the most popular potential contender among both the public, at minus three points, and 2024 Conservative voters, at 21 points, the research shows.
Mr Cleverly is second in the running, Savanta’s findings suggest, at minus nine points with the public and 19 points among 2024 Conservative voters.
