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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Liam Thorp

Race to be next Prime Minister down to final two

The race to be the country's next Prime Minister is now down to just two people.

The latest round of voting in the Conservative Party leadership contest has taken place today. The results mean that the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will be either former Chancellor Rishi Sunak or the current foreign secretary Liz Truss.

Today's votes mean that former minister Penny Morduant has left the contest. She had become one of the favourites after strong backing from MPs. But the latest round of voting saw Ms Truss leapfrog Ms Morduant to take the second spot in the contest and go through to the final run off against Mr Sunak, who came top in terms of MP backers.

The final results saw Rishi Sunak get the backing of 137 Tory MPs, while Ms Truss managed to get 113 backers. She narrowly overtook Ms Morduant who was back on 105 votes.

READ MORE: Liverpool Council chief executive Tony Reeves resigns

Ms Truss and Mr Sunak will now spend the coming weeks campaigning for the all important votes of Conservative Party members, who will vote to decide who will become the next Tory leader and the new Prime Minister. That result will be announced on September 5.

The contest to become the next Prime Minister was launched after Mr Johnson finally caved to huge pressure earlier this month and announced he would be stepping down. There were an initial total of 11 candidates who put their names forwards to take over who were whittled down over a number of rounds of voting.

Yesterday, former minister Kemi Badenoch was knocked out of the contest, finishing in fourth place overall. The remaining candidates were then furiously trying to get those who had backed her to support them in the fight for the final two.

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