There were gasps in the Commons committee room where the result was announced.
Cleverly admitted to the FT the result was a “bit of a punch to the gut”, saying he had repeatedly warned his backers that “Kremlinology is a fool’s game” – but that he “lost track” of the number of supporters who asked who he would prefer to go up against.
“I’d worried that that might happen,” he said, adding: “I kept saying there aren’t many votes to play with… it doesn’t take very many people to really distort outcomes.”
He declined to say who of the final two he had backed.
When Badenoch and Jenrick topped the MPs’ poll, both signalled they would offer him a position in their shadow cabinet if they became leader.
Badenoch said Cleverly’s campaign had been “full of energy, ideas and optimism”, and she looked forward to “continuing to work with him”.
Jenrick told Cleverly the party “needs you in its top team in the years ahead”, adding that he would be “delighted for him to serve in the shadow cabinet should he want to do so”.
Jenrick has made leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) a key plank of his leadership offer, saying all Tory MPs would need to sign up to the policy – but Cleverly has rejected the idea.
However, a stint on the backbenches appears unlikely to last forever and Cleverly has left the door open to a future bid to become leader of the Conservative Party, saying he would not “rule anything in or anything out”.
Nor did he rule out the idea of a bid to become mayor of London in 2028, adding: “We do need to fight back in London. We need to fight back in big, big, big chunks of the country.”
