The Conservatives are speeding up their leadership contest to set up a battle between two big name candidates within the next fortnight, with Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt most likely to make the final cut.
Announcing the rule changes, the party said candidates must declare at least eight nominations from fellow Conservative MPs by Monday in a move that will knock out some of the lesser known hopefuls.
All candidates will then need the votes of 17 Conservative MPs – at least 5% of the parliamentary party – to stay in the first round ballot and at least 33 – or 10% of Tory MPs– to stay in the second round of voting.
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What happens next in the Tory party leadership race?
As she announced on 24 May, Theresa May stepped down formally as Conservative leader on Friday 7 June, although she remains in place as prime minister until her successor is chosen.
In a Conservative leadership contest MPs hold a series of votes, in order to narrow down the initially crowded field to two leadership hopefuls, who go to a postal ballot of members.
How does the voting work?
MPs choose one candidate, in a secret ballot held in a committee room in the House of Commons. The votes are tallied and the results announced on the same day.
In the first round any candidate who won the support of less than 17 MPs was eliminated. In the second round anybody reaching less than 33 votes was eliminated. In subsequent rounds the bottom placed contender drops out until there are only two left. The party membership then chooses between them.
When will the results be announced?
The postal ballot of members has begun, and the Tory party says it will announce the new prime minister on 23 July..
Subsequent rounds will knock out the candidates with the least votes until a shortlist of two is left, in a process likely to take just two weeks with a final round of voting on 20 June.
About 160,000 Conservative members will then cast their ballots on which of the two will be the next prime minister, with an announcement in the week beginning July 22.
The new rules from the 1922 Committee benefit the more established candidates who have already built up support, with Johnson currently totalling almost 40 public endorsements from MPs. Gove and Hunt have about 30 public supporters each.
There were at one stage 13 candidates who had declared they wanted to succeed Theresa May, with more expected to enter the race in the coming days, but two ministers, Kit Malthouse and James Cleverly, withdrew on Tuesday acknowledging they did not have enough support to make the final two.
Cleverly said his candidacy had required MPs to take “a leap of faith, [to] skip a generation and vote for a relatively new MP” but that it was clear he did not have the backing of colleagues to progress.
Malthouse said: “The last few days have demonstrated that there is an appetite for this contest to be over quickly and for the nation to have a new leader in place as soon as possible.”
Under the new structure, Rory Stewart, Mark Harper, Esther McVey, Andrea Leadsom, and Sam Gyimah are the most vulnerable of the remaining contenders to falling out at the first round.
Matt Hancock, Dominic Raab and Sajid Javid have enough endorsements to clear the first hurdle but are some way off having 10% of Tory MPs – of 33 of their colleagues. However, at least 140 Conservative MPs are still to say who they are backing, with a large rump of Tory moderates and a smaller group of the most hardline Brexiters still holding back
Some MPs had raised concerns about the number of hopefuls and time it would take to pick two leading candidates, but others are concerned that narrowing the field too fast could lead to a hasty decision without the views of the frontrunners being sufficiently tested.
Under the previous rules, MPs would have cast rounds of votes with the least popular candidate dropping out until the number was reduced to the shortlist of two.
With Johnson out in front, the race appears to be on for the second place on the ballot, with Gove and Hunt the most likely candidates.
Hancock, who is pitching himself as a centre ground candidate who can take on Jeremy Corbyn, is giving a foreign policy speech on Wednesday, in which he will wade into the debate over whether the UK should be so dependent on the technology of Chinese firm Huawei
He will say: “The question of whether we should have Chinese equipment on our 5G networks is asking the question the wrong way round. The question should be: why don’t we have a home grown solution?”
Hunt will launch a campaign website and video on Wednesday, after having gained the unexpected backing of Liam Fox, the trade secretary, on Tuesday.
Fox, one of the cabinet’s most dedicated Brexiters, surprised some other leadership camps with his endorsement of Hunt, who has said pursuing no deal would be “political suicide” because it would lead to a general election.
Over the weekend, Johnson won the coveted endorsement of Liz Truss, the chief secretary to the Treasury, who had been touted to run herself, as well as that of the sacked former defence secretary Gavin Williamson.
Mel Stride, the new leader of the House of Commons, is a backer of Gove, while Javid, the home secretary, won the support of the culture secretary, Jeremy Wright, on Tuesday.
David Gauke, the justice secretary, who has repeatedly cautioned against a no-deal Brexit, has endorsed Stewart, the international development secretary who was formerly a junior minister in his department.
Stewart, who has ruled out pursuing a no-deal Brexit, has attracted media attention for his campaign, which has been based on social media videos of him meeting the public at short-notice events around the country.
Several high-profile cabinet names are yet to declare who they will back, including the chancellor, Philip Hammond, and the work and pensions secretary, Amber Rudd, who has been one of the most vocal cabinet voices against leaving the EU without an agreement.
Rudd’s 60-strong group of One Nation Conservative MPs will hold the first of three hustings on Tuesday night for Tory candidates.