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| Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May win Tory MPs' vote on leadership | Andrea Leadsom and Theresa May win Tory MPs' vote on leadership |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Britain will have a female prime minster by the autumn, after Conservative MPs chose two women – Theresa May, the home secretary, and Andrea Leadsom, the pro-Brexit junior energy minister – to put forward to party activists in the contest to replace David Cameron. | |
| Related: Tory leadership election: Leadsom beats Gove to join May on shortlist - live | Related: Tory leadership election: Leadsom beats Gove to join May on shortlist - live |
| Leadsom, who was considered a rank outsider when the contest began, beat the justice secretary, Michael Gove, in the latest vote of MPs. Gove, who entered the contest last Thursday, had effectively stopped his fellow Vote Leave campaigner Boris Johnson from entering the race. | Leadsom, who was considered a rank outsider when the contest began, beat the justice secretary, Michael Gove, in the latest vote of MPs. Gove, who entered the contest last Thursday, had effectively stopped his fellow Vote Leave campaigner Boris Johnson from entering the race. |
| In the second round of voting, May scooped up 199 votes, Leadsom had 84 and Gove was knocked out with 46. The choice means that the next British prime minister is guaranteed to be a woman, the second after Margaret Thatcher. The result is due to be declared on 9 September. | |
| May said Britain needed “strong, proven” leadership to handle Brexit negotiations and unite the country. “I’m delighted to have won so much support from my colleagues,” she said. “This vote shows the Tory party can come together and unite, and under my leadership it will. | May said Britain needed “strong, proven” leadership to handle Brexit negotiations and unite the country. “I’m delighted to have won so much support from my colleagues,” she said. “This vote shows the Tory party can come together and unite, and under my leadership it will. |
| “We need strong, proven leadership to negotiate the best deal for Britain as we leave the European Union, to unite our party and our country, and to make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few but for every one of us.” | “We need strong, proven leadership to negotiate the best deal for Britain as we leave the European Union, to unite our party and our country, and to make Britain a country that works not for a privileged few but for every one of us.” |
| Leadsom’s campaign chief, Tim Loughton, said: “It was absolutely right that this would be an all-women shortlist. We have two strong women. We can now given the party a real choice. A remain woman. A leave woman. They both happened to go to state schools. They are both women. Hey, that’s pretty quirky for the Tory party.” | |
| Gove, conceding defeat, said he was, “really fortunate to have some of the brightest and the best of the parliamentary party on my side”, and described the two remaining candidates as “formidable politicians”. He added that he was pleased Britain would now have a female prime minister. | |
| The justice secretary’s support had fallen since the first round, when 48 MPs voted for him. His campaign lieutenant, the skills minister Nick Boles, apologised after sending private messages to MPs urging them to “work together to stop Andrea Leadsom”. | |
| The former defence secretary Liam Fox was knocked out when he came last in the first round of voting on Tuesday, and the work and pensions secretary, Stephen Crabb, chose to withdraw after finishing fourth. | |
| Related: How Tory party members will chose the next prime minister | Related: How Tory party members will chose the next prime minister |
| Johnson swung his weight behind Leadsom despite her relative inexperience, insisting that she had the “zap, drive and determination” required for the top job. | Johnson swung his weight behind Leadsom despite her relative inexperience, insisting that she had the “zap, drive and determination” required for the top job. |
| She also received the backing of many of those MPs who, unlike May, had supported the campaign for Britain to leave the EU. | |
| The electorate’s shock decision to vote to leave on 23 June triggered the leadership contest, after Cameron, who had campaigned strongly for a remain vote, said he would step down to allow a new prime minister to guide the complex negotiations ahead. | The electorate’s shock decision to vote to leave on 23 June triggered the leadership contest, after Cameron, who had campaigned strongly for a remain vote, said he would step down to allow a new prime minister to guide the complex negotiations ahead. |
| Centrist Tory MPs will now fear that the party’s activists, who have the final say on who will be their next leader and the country’s next prime minister, will prefer the outspoken Leadsom to May, whose long stint at the Home Office means she is considered a safe pair of hands. |