Get set for a packed starting line in the race to be Britain’s next prime minister. Candidates will swarm into the post-Johnson vacuum, where there is no clear favourite nor any dominant vision of what the Conservative Party stands for.

The process is designed to start with a flurry of candidates which quickly shrinks to a binary choice. MPs vote in a series of ballots to cull the number to two, who are then put to the party’s 200,000 members in a postal vote.