Supporters of Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch – named as the bookies’ favourite – fear she has fallen victim to ‘dirty tricks’ that will see her bid ended early.
Whispers are aplenty among campaigners for the housing, communities and local government shadow secretary after she failed to top the first round ballot on Thursday.
Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, secured the most votes from MPs with 28, six ahead of Kemi Badenoch on 22.
Badenoch was barely ahead of ex-home secretary James Cleverly, who received 21 to place third.
Her supporters are questioning whether her campaign has lost momentum – or if tactical voting is at play.
Some believe a group of Jenrick-backing MPs ‘lent’ their support to Cleverly in a bid to boost his numbers and oust Badenoch, the candidate they see as being the biggest threat to their preferred candidate’s bid.
One Badenoch ally told The Times: ‘It feels like dirty tricks by the Jenrick campaign to ‘lend’ Cleverly supporters so he gets momentum and knocks Kemi out of the final two.
‘What we’re telling MPs is that if they don’t want Jenrick to win, the only person who can beat him among the members is Kemi.’
Jenrick’s camp however described the claims as ‘desperate’.
They said: ‘We need to do better as a party than anonymously [lying] to newspapers about colleagues.
Priti Patel will play no further part after coming last in the ballot with 14, behind Mel Stride (16) and Tom Tugendhat (17).
MPs are whittling the numbers down to four before a ‘beauty parade’ at the party conference in Birmingham at the start of next month.
The figures finally give a clear indication of support for the candidates, after barely half of the 121 politicians still standing after the election rout publicly declared an allegiance.
A second round will take place next week.
The ballot followed the latest poll by the ConservativeHome website, which found Ms Badenoch is favourite among activists, with 34 per cent support compared to 18 per cent for her nearest rival Mr Jenrick.
Despite her disappointing showing Ms Badenoch publicly claimed the result of the first round of voting showed there was ‘huge support’ for her campaign.
‘Thank you to every one of my colleagues who voted for me. This, coupled with all the independent members polls, show that there is huge support for @renewal2030,’ she posted on X.
‘It’s time to deal with hard truths today, rather than big problems tomorrow.
‘I look forward to making the case for renewal around the country, with colleagues and members.’
Mrs Badenoch has highlighted that the Tories ‘talked right but governed left’ and ‘acted like Labour’.
Mr Jenrick has focused 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.