Tory leadership: Result due in vote to decide final two for run-off

Voting has closed in the final Tory MPs' ballot to select the two leadership candidates to be put to a vote of party members.

Only Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, and Liz Truss remain in the race after Kemi Badenoch was eliminated on Tuesday.

Mr Sunak is still the frontrunner, with Ms Mordaunt and Ms Truss vying for the second spot in the final round.

MPs finished voting at 1500 BST, with a result expected to be announced around 1600.

Conservative Party members will then vote over the summer to pick the winner, with a result to be announced on 5 September.

The previous round, on Tuesday, saw Mr Sunak gain the support of three MPs, to bring his total to 118.

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Ms Mordaunt gained 10 votes to bring her total to 92, while Ms Truss gained 15 to close the gap and bring her total to 86.

Ms Badenoch gained one vote to reach 59 overall, but remained in last place and was knocked out of the contest.

Which of Ms Mordaunt and Ms Truss makes it to the final two is now likely to depend on who can attract the most support from those MPs who supported Ms Badenoch.

One of them, Ben Bradley, said he thought Ms Badenoch's voters could go "in all directions" and that he had not yet decided whom to back on Wednesday.

Writing in the Telegraph, Ms Truss said she was the "only person who can deliver the change - in line with true Conservative principles", while Mr Sunak's campaign has argued he is the candidate who could beat Labour.

On Wednesday morning, a source from Ms Mordaunt's campaign said: "Penny's been speaking with colleagues already this morning and so many of Tom and Kemi's backers are calling out for change. As the only one not in Johnson's cabinet, Penny is the sole MP left in the race who offers a genuine fresh start."

The campaigns have also accused one another of transferring votes to their rivals as part of a strategy to improve their own position.

Speaking to LBC Radio, former cabinet minister David Davis, who is backing Ms Mordaunt, said it was the "dirtiest campaign" he had ever seen.

"Rishi [Sunak] just reallocated some... He wants to fight Liz, because she's the person who will lose the debate with him," he said.

Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer has criticised the remaining contenders for having "racked up £330bn of unfunded spending commitments" in tax pledges.

Speaking at Boris Johnson's final Prime Minister's Questions, the Labour leader quoted comments by the contenders criticising the current government's record.

"I think the message coming out of this leadership contest is pretty clear - they got us into this mess, and they've no idea how to get us out of it," he added.

But the prime minister hit back, saying any of the candidates would "wipe the floor" with him at PMQs "like some household detergent".

There has been day after day of smiles and visions, promises and hustings.

But it now boils down to a final vote of Conservative MPs here, between 1pm and 3pm this afternoon, to decide which two of the three remaining candidates get a golden ticket to the run off vote among Tory party members.

Right now, the final realignment is underway.

Votes are fluid. Even if a candidate's numbers don't appear to move much between votes, they can still have gained some and lost others.

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Ahead of Wednesday's vote, Mr Sunak announced a policy of making the UK self-sufficient in energy production by 2045.

The ex-chancellor said he would scrap plans to relax a ban on new onshore wind farms, and would instead focus on offshore turbines.

Ms Mordaunt meanwhile has pledged to make it easier for renters to get a mortgage by requiring lenders to take into account rental payments when considering their credit history.

A YouGov survey of 725 party members on Monday and Tuesday suggested Mr Sunak would lose to either Ms Mordaunt or Ms Truss in a head-to-head.

The poll had Ms Mordaunt beating Mr Sunak by 51% to 37% and Ms Truss beating him by 54% to 35%.

The current size of the Tory party membership is not known for certain, but at the last leadership election in 2019 it was around 160,000, and is thought to have grown since.

The Conservative website says members can expect to receive their ballot papers between 1 to 5 August.

The deadline for voting - which can be done by post or online - is 17:00 BST on 2 September.

Members are being sent their ballot papers earlier in the process than in 2019, when voters received their ballot papers two weeks before the deadline.