Tory MPs select final 3 candidates to succeed Boris Johnson amid rumours of 'dark op' vote lending

• The race to succeed Boris Johnson remains wide open as MPs steadily eliminate candidates.
• Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt remain, but none has a confirmed place in the last two.

The race to succeed Boris Johnson remained wide open ahead of the final vote among Conservative MPs after Kemi Badenoch was eliminated on Tuesday afternoon.

The UK's next prime minister will either be a woman – the third to reach such heights – or the first non-white man.

Rishi Sunak, the former chancellor, saw his share of backbench support nudge up by three to 118.

This left him two votes away from the 120 required to guarantee a place in the final stage, when Conservative Party members rather than MPs pick the overall winner.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary who has staked a claim to the right of the party, saw her vote jump by 15 to 86. She lagged in third place behind Penny Mordaunt, a trade minister, who secured 92 votes.

Badenoch was eliminated after she came fourth with 59 backers.

The surge behind Truss, which came after centrist candidate Tom Tugendhat was knocked out yesterday, has led some to speculate that vote lending has been taking place.

One former Tugendhat supporter told Insider: "It's the Liz vote that surprises".

This MP and others were granted anonymity to discuss the confidential voting process.

He said: "I don't think the net changes were based on our vote... I don't think Liz got 15 from us. It almost looks like Liz has peeled some off Rishi, would have been a great dark op."

"Many of us think it wouldn't be right to give the membership two members of Boris's cabinet [Truss and Sunak] given everything that's happened."

Another Tugendhat backer said: "It does feel more fluid than anyone can easily explain... something going on."

MPs whose candidates were still in the race told Insider that such claims were untrue.

And at least one of Tugendhat's supporters, Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan, publicly backed Truss after the vote.

Trevelyan has been highly critical of Mordaunt during the race, which has become so fractious that frontrunners Sunak and Truss pulled out of a final televised debate was due to take place on Sky News Tuesday evening.

Andrea Leadsom, who is campaign manager for Mordaunt, told Sky News that her candidate was "fighting a positive, clean campaign" that would "reunite the party".

One of Sunak's supporters played down the significance of his marginal increase.

He was "going in the right direction", the senior backbencher said, adding that he was cautiously optimistic about Sunak's chances.