Conservative Party Reveal When The New Prime Minister Will Be Announced
4 June 2019, 19:35
The executive of the powerful 1922 Committee and the Conservative party board have met and agreed on new rules for the Tory Party leadership contest.
The Committee have revealed that a new Prime Minister will be in place the week beginning July 22.
In order to deal with the crowded field, candidates now need to secure support from eight MPs rather than the two required under the system used in 2016.
To stay in the contest, candidates will then need to win at least 16 votes in the first ballot and 32 in the second round in order to speed up the process of whittling them down to a final two.
If the ballot thresholds are met by all candidates, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated.
The first ballot of MPs will take place on June 13, with further votes scheduled on June 18, 19 and 20.
The winner - and the next prime minister - will be decided by Tory members from the two candidates remaining at the end of the process.
The process will begin with a call for candidates at 5pm on Friday, after Theresa May formally quits as Tory leader.
Nominations will be received from 10am on Monday, June 10 and will close at 5pm that day.
Once the parliamentary votes have been completed, the first membership hustings is planned for June 22, with the whole process due to end in the week beginning July 22.
On Tuesday two hopefuls in the race dropped out, James Cleverly and Kit Malthouse both withdrew their entries.
