Former Chancellor Rishi Sunak has won the most votes in the first round of voting to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and Prime Minister.
meanwhile, former cabinet minister Jeremy Hunt and current Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi have been eliminated from the Tory leadership race after the first round of voting. They each failed to reach the 30 votes needed to advance to the next stage.
Mr Zahawi, who was appointed to the position by Mr Johnson last week following the resignation of Mr Sunak, received 25 votes.
The front-runners in the race, Mr Sunak and Secretary of State Liz Truss and Secretary of Commerce Penny Mordaunt, continued in their bid to become the next Prime Minister.
Senior backbencher Tom Tugendhat, Attorney General Suella Braverman and former equality minister Kemi Badenoch also advanced to the final six candidates.
Graham Brady, the chairman of the 1922 Conservative committee that oversaw the contest, read the results in a crowded committee room 14 in the House of Commons.
The results come as Downing Street denied having conducted an anti-Sunak smear campaign, while Mr Johnson’s allies singled out the former chancellor for criticism in an increasingly bitter leadership contest.
The interim prime minister’s press secretary on Wednesday urged Mr Johnson to “remain neutral” despite his remaining loyalists throwing their support behind Ms Truss.
Mr Sunak, who currently has the most public support of Tory MPs, has been faced with claims by the supporters of the Secretary of State for implementing “economically harmful” policies.
They have also attacked its campaign with claims it is engaging in “dirty tricks” to manipulate the Tory leadership race that will select the next prime minister.
When asked if No. 10 is involved in a “stop Sunak” operation ahead of the close of the first ballot on Wednesday, Mr Johnson’s press secretary said: “No.”
She declined to say whether Downing Street will continue to support the former chancellor, whose resignation helped end Johnson’s hold on number 10.
The press secretary said she was not sure whether Mr Johnson discussed support for Ms Truss with Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg before making their public statement in Downing Street.
“He remains neutral in this game,” the spokeswoman said.
Mr Rees-Mogg, the Brexit Chancellor of Chances, and Ms Dorries, the Culture Minister, arrived in support of Ms Truss moments after leaving a cabinet meeting with Mr Johnson.
On Wednesday, Mr Rees-Mogg went on to argue that the Secretary of State is “fiscally on the right side of the argument”, unlike Mr Sunak.
He told Sky News that Ms Truss was “against the former Chancellor’s endless tax increases, which I think have been economically damaging. I was also against (them) in Cabinet”.
He added, “I think that’s important, that you have someone who is fiscally on the right side of the argument, who doesn’t believe that higher taxes are the right answer to every question.”
He also said Ms Truss – who voted Remain in the 2016 European Union referendum – is more willing to take advantage of Brexit than Mr Sunak who voted Leave.
Mr Rees-Mogg claimed she is “more in favor of abolishing the supremacy of EU law and having a sunset over EU law” than Mr Sunak’s Ministry of Finance.
“I think you have to judge people by what they’re doing right now,” he said.