General election 2024: who will succeed Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader? Odds with Badenoch favourite

If the polls are correct, the Prime Minister is set for a historic loss, with Survation predicting the Conservatives could be left with just 64 seats. Unless Sunak miraculously wins, his position will become untenable and Conservatives are already plotting to become his successor.

I attended a campaign event with Sunak last week and even though the PM gave a speech to Tory activists, all the chatter in the crowd was who would become the next leader. To become the Conservative leader, the candidates will have to be well liked by MPs and then win a run off with a members’ vote. So here we assess the runners and riders of who might replace Sunak.

Kemi Badenoch

The current Business and Trade Secretary is the bookies favourite at 5/2 with BonusCodeBets. Badenoch is popular with both MPs and members so stands a good chance of winning the members vote if she makes it that far. She’s been the MP for Saffron Walden since 2017, and previously unsuccessfully stood for leader when Truss won.

Badenoch is seen as a fairly right-wing Tory who is not afraid to get involved with culture wars. She has become involved in a number of controversies during her time in government, including recently with former Post Office chair Henry Staunton. Critics of the Business and Trade Secretary say there is little depth to her politics. One MP told the Telegraph: “Can you name me one thing she stands for apart from taking on the woke mob?”

The only complication for Badenoch is with her seat. Some postal ballots have not been delivered and if her majority is tight the Labour Party could call for the election to be held again. This could mean a by-election for Badenoch to fight, and so she may miss out on the Tory leadership process altogether.

Priti Patel

Dame Priti Patel was Home Secretary under Boris Johnson, and has been on the backbenches since Liz Truss became Prime Minister in 2022. Patel has been known as a Thatcherite and having some very socially conservative views. She voted against gay marriage and previously was in favour of capital punishment. She would also be popular amongst the members. Patel is the second favourite with BonusCodeBets at 5/1.

Tom Tugendhat

Tugendhat is likely to be the centrist Tories candidate of choice. Almost every poll suggests he will retain his seat in Tonbridge, Kent, and he’s highly likely to run, having thrown his hat in the ring before. Tugendhat was in the Territorial Army before he entered politics, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He is seen as a foreign policy expert having been chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee from 2017 to 2022, before becoming Security Minister. Tugendhat ran after Johnson’s resignation and was eliminated in the third round of MP voting. Depending on the composition of the Parliamentary Tory Party, Tugendhat could do well with the MP votes but may struggle to convince the more hardline Tory members. He is priced at 6/1 with BonusCodeBets.

Penny Mordaunt

Mordaunt, who has long coveted the top job, would be one of the favourites to succeed Sunak, if she wasn’t expected to lose her seat in the general election. Only one of the 13 main pollsters has predicted she will hold on to Portsmouth North tomorrow night.

She’s currently priced at 15/2, but those odds would be much shorter if she was standing in a safe seat. She’s one of the few MPs who is popular amongst both wings of the party, and is also loved by the members for her tub-thumping Britannia rhetoric.

She stood in for Sunak in one of the BBC debates, and was also considered by Tory plotters to be installed as an emergency Prime Minister had the local election results gone worse.

Nigel Farage

A man who is standing against the Conservatives at this election is the fifth favourite to replace Rishi Sunak - make it make sense! Reform UK leader and avowed Tory destroyer Nigel Farage is 9/1 to become the next Conservative leader. This would require Farage to become a Tory MP, either by winning in Clacton and then defecting or standing in a future by-election for the Conservative Party.

Farage has said he wants to destroy the Tories for letting down the country on immigration, but this could be by taking over the party from the inside. The reason for the short price is that Farage is one of the most popular politicians amongst Tory members. I watched at the party conference last year as he was followed around by a swarm of young acolytes the entire time. While it seems unlikely that Farage could replace Sunak, who knows what will happen after the election.

Suella Braverman

The firebrand former Home Secretary is one of the outsiders at 10/1 with BonusCodeBets. Braverman has already put her colours to the mast, saying today the Tories should “read the writing on the wall” and “prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition”.

In an article in the Telegraph, she indicated she thought the party needs to move to the right. “It is notable that Labour’s vote share has not markedly increased in recent weeks, but our vote is evaporating from both Left and Right,” she wrote.

“The critics will cite Boris (Johnson), Liz (Truss), Rwanda, and, I can immodestly predict, even me as all being fatal to our ‘centrist’ vote. The reality is rather different: we are haemorrhaging votes largely to Reform. Why? Because we failed to cut immigration or tax or deal with the net zero and woke policies we have presided over for 14 years.

“We may lose hundreds of excellent MPs because of our abject inability to have foreseen this inevitability months ago: that our failure to unite the right would destroy us.” She’s widely expected to win her seat of Fareham and Waterlooville and would be popular amongst the members, however she may struggle to get enough support amongst MPs.

Boris Johnson

The former Prime Minister is an outlier at 25/1. He joined the election campaign for the first time last night, saying: “Don’t let the Putinistas deliver the Corbynistas. Don’t let Putin’s pet parrots give this entire country psittacosis – which is a disease you get by the way from cosying up to pet parrots.”

He added: “Everybody if you actually want higher taxes next week, this year, if you feel you’ve got a few thousand to spare, then vote Labour on Thursday. If you want uncontrolled immigration and mandatory wokery, and pointless kowtowing to Brussels again, then go right ahead, make my day, vote for Starmer. But if you want to protect our democracy and our economy and keep this country strong abroad by spending 2.5% of our GDP on defence which Labour still refuses to commit to, then you know what to do, don’t you, everybody?”

Johnson’s commitment to the cause has been questioned as he’s spent the vast majority of the election on holiday. His return as an MP, which would be required to become leader, is also complicated as he has a mammoth House of Commons suspension hanging over him for misleading Parliament over partygate. I’m putting this one down as unlikely.