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Dame Priti Patel, former home secretary, has become the fifth candidate to declare publicly for the Conservative leadership, claiming she could unify the party after the trauma of its election drubbing.
Kemi Badenoch, former business secretary, is expected to be the sixth and final candidate to enter the contest before Monday’s deadline.
The final list of contenders also includes James Cleverly, former foreign secretary, Tom Tugendhat, ex-security minister, Mel Stride, former work and pensions secretary, and Robert Jenrick, former immigration minister.
Tory MPs expect that Suella Braverman, former home secretary and a fiery opponent of immigration and “woke” causes, will fail to secure the nominations of ten fellow MPs required to enter the contest.
Patel said that the party needed to move beyond questions of “left and right” and focus on unity and offering a credible alternative to Labour on issues voters cared about.
“We must now turn our conservative values into strong policies to bring about positive change for people across our country,” she said. “It is time to put unity before personal vendetta, country before party and delivery before self-interest.”
Patel, who did not serve in Rishi Sunak’s last administration, has largely stayed out of the spotlight for the past two years. She blamed politicians who “fell out and left us short” for the party’s problems.
A Brexiter and author of the previous government’s Rwanda asylum policy, Patel was seen as a divisive figure during her time as home secretary, but is now presenting herself as a unifier who could bring together both wings of her party.
The contest will initially see MPs whittle down the six expected candidates to four in September. The remaining four will then present themselves in a “beauty contest” at the Tory conference in Birmingham in early October.
Conservative MPs will then narrow the shortlist to two candidates. Party members, generally seen to be on the right of the parliamentary party, will choose the eventual winner.
Badenoch, who is expected to declare her candidacy on Monday, is the bookmakers’ favourite to win the contest, which will conclude with a winner being announced on November 2.
Jenrick, once seen as a Tory moderate, is the bookmakers’ second favourite and has reinvented himself as a hardline anti-immigration candidate, who has succeeded in winning over many of Braverman’s former supporters.
Badenoch and Cleverly are Brexiters who hope to win over Tory MPs from the moderate One Nation wing, while Stride, an ally of Sunak, would offer a more managerial style of leadership.
Tugendhat, who hails from the anti-Brexit, One Nation tradition, has insisted he would consider leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, if it stopped the UK dealing with the immigration issue.
With only 121 Tory MPs surviving the general election on July 4, they are all likely to receive a lot of attention from the six expected candidates in the coming weeks.