UK Conservatives leadership: Suella Braverman eliminated, leaving Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Liz Truss, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat in race

Elimination of Suella Braverman leaves five contenders in the race to be PM. Now, they’ll have their credentials tested on live TV.

In grey: Nadhim Zahawi (top right), Suella Braverman (bottom, second from left) and Jeremy Hunt (bottom, third from left) have all been eliminated from the Conservatives' leadership race in the UK, leaving (colour, clockwise from top left) Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Penny Mordaunt, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat battle it out.

And then there were five.

In an engrossing political knockout competition, right wing Suella Braverman was on Thursday eliminated from the race for Britain’s Conservative party leadership.

Still standing are the former chancellor for the exchequer Rishi Sunak (who has 101 MPs backing him) the controversial Penny Mordaunt (83 supporters), who has come under renewed heat about her definition of a woman, foreign secretary Liz Truss (64 backers). Former equalities secretary Kemi Badenoch remains a wildcard, with 49 backers, while chairman of the foreign affairs committee, Tom Tugendhat (32 supporters) is expected to be eliminated in Monday’s next round of voting

But in an intervention well known to reality television show producers, there is a twist – actually, three twists – for all five candidates have agreed to a trio of television debates across Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

Attorney General Suella Braverman knocked out in latest round of Tory leadership race to succeed Boris Johnsonhttps://t.co/GAdjfCMh41pic.twitter.com/W1mjD3SU7y

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) July 14, 2022

For polished performer Sunak, this will be a chance to confirm his favouritism to become the new Tory party leader and British prime minister.

But for the others, especially the little known Ms Badenoch as well as Ms Mordaunt, they will be three prime time opportunities to win over around 30 crucial MPs who have not yet committed, as well as to convince the MPs who backed the recently eliminated Ms Braverman to swing across to their camp.

The top two contenders after next week’s series of elimination bouts will be put to the Conservative party membership in a postal ballot.

Fareham MP @SuellaBraverman says she doesn’t regard being knocked out of the Leadership contest at this stage as a defeat pic.twitter.com/h43b4ra0Bl

— Peter Henley (@Peter_Henley) July 14, 2022

Overnight (AEST), Ms Braverman fired a shot at Ms Mordaunt, a former magician’s assistant, for her trick of trying to rewrite history.

“(Mordaunt) takes a different view to me when it comes to gender ideology and the position of trans. I think she said a trans woman is a woman, I disagree with that,” Ms Braverman said.

Ms Mordaunt has also been slammed by Lord Frost, the former Brexit secretary, who revealed he had asked for her to be moved on from his department because of sloppiness and lack of attention to detail in regards to the Northern Ireland proocl.

Ms Truss, 46, last month introduced legislation to rip up the protocol — he Brexit deal negotiated between the EU and the UK which included an effective trade border down the Irish Sea — after it lead to an impasse on power sharing between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein in the devolved legislature in Belfast.

Tory leadership candidate Penny Mourdant has launched her campaign saying she was inspired by Margaret Thatcher.

"Witnessing Thatcher's resolve, I knew my country stood up to bullies."

Do you think Penny is the next Maggie? pic.twitter.com/HkW7MRTpk4

— TalkTV (@TalkTV) July 13, 2022

However, Ms Mordaunt, the junior trade minister, has tried to recast her “woke” credentials by insisting she would focus on growth and competition, rather than tax and spending, to bring about a Brexit dividend. She has promised to focus on cost of living crisis by cutting fuel taxes and raising the income tax threshold.

At her launch earlier this week, Ms Mordaunt joked that working to secure the backing of an initial 20 MPs for the first leadership ballot was like “speed dating’’.

Meanwhile Ms Badenoch, who grew up in Nigeria until she was 16, said she was looking forward to stressing in the upcoming television debates that the time for change was now.

The Times reported Mr Johnson, 58, is urging defeated leadership candidates to back “anyone but Rishi”.

The resignations last week of Mr Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid, sparked the exit of nearly 60 frontbenchers, culminating with Mr Johnson’s annoucing last Thursday he would stand down.