Who is the favourite to be next Tory leader? Latest odds

As Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick battle it out to be the next leader of the Conservative Party, a group of centrist Tory MPs has said it won't be supporting either of them.

The Tory Reform Group (TRG) said in a statement that its members have been "consistently disappointed by the lack of engagement" by the candidates, who it claims "have used rhetoric and focused on issues which are far and away from the party at its best".

In a sharp rebuke of the right-wing candidates, the group, which is "committed to being radically moderate" and "values-driven", urged Badenoch and Jenrick to "recognise where the values of the British people lie, and to work for positive change rather than try to divide us".

In the final round of voting among Tory MPs, Badenoch secured the highest number of votes, with 42 colleagues backing her.

Jenrick was second with 41 votes and Cleverly was surprisingly knocked out with just 37 MPs backing him, despite coming top of the previous round's vote on Tuesday.

The two remaining candidates will now spend the next three weeks trying to win support among members of the Conservative Party (which numbered around 170,000 in 2022).

The ballot closes on 31 October, with the final result announced on 2 November.

Here, Yahoo News UK takes a look at the two remaining candidates and their odds of winning the contest, according to betting odds website Oddschecker.

Kemi Badenoch (8/15)

Kemi Badenoch has been able to back up her claims of "huge support" for her leadership campaign with a surprising victory in Wednesday's final MPs' vote.

Popular with the Tory grassroots, the current shadow housing secretary ran unsuccessfully for the party leadership in 2022 but has since put herself in a much stronger position this time around and is now the bookies' favourite to win following Cleverly's elimination.

With polling suggesting she has more support among Tory party members, she is now favourite to win the contest. A poll published on the ConservativeHome website on 6 October suggested support for Jenrick among Conservative Party members had slumped, while Badenoch remained the most popular candidate - seven points ahead of her nearest rival.

Badenoch's campaign stumbled in September when she was forced to clarify comments she made about maternity pay, saying that "contrary to what some have said", she does support it.

She had previously appeared to criticise statutory maternity pay when she said the government is doing "too much", telling Times Radio: "Tax comes from people who are working, we’re taking from one group of people and giving to another. This, in my view, is excessive."

Appointed business secretary by Sunak, Badenoch has also served as women and equalities minister and vowed to change the Equality Act to rewrite the definition of sex and allow organisations to bar transgender women from single-sex spaces.

On the issue of immigration, Badenoch has said not all cultures are "equally valid", giving the example of societies that "that believe in child marriage" or that "women don't have equal rights".

In an op-ed for the Telegraph, she said Labour's only real strategy was to "blame the Tories" and warned the party would "spend the next four years grasping at straws, making announcements but with no plan".

Seat: Badenoch won her North West Essex seat with 19,360 votes to the Labour candidate's 16,750.

• Read more: Who is Kemi Badenoch? Tory says misinterpretation of Equality Act is feeding discontent (Evening Standard)

Robert Jenrick (7/4)

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick had topped the opening two rounds of the contest to seemingly put himself in pole position.

But he has now seen Badenoch pull ahead of him.

He sits on the right of the party, with key policies including leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, cutting the foreign aid budget and raising defence spending to 3% of GDP.

Jenrick resigned from his government post as immigration minister last December, claiming Rishi Sunak's Rwanda deportation policy "did not go far enough". He has proposed a legally binding cap on migration numbers, which would have to be approved by Parliament and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.

Nicknamed "Robert Generic" when first elected to the Commons in 2014 for his apparently moderate politics, Mr Jenrick has gradually moved to the right of the Tory Party.

Appearing on the BBC's Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme, he defended changing his stance on Brexit when asked about a letter he is said to have signed describing it as a "dystopia".

"I don't remember that letter, but my view has changed absolutely," he said. "But I was concerned that it would prove difficult for the British state to realise all the benefits of Brexit, and in some respects, I've been justified in that regard.

"We've had a great deal of economic and constitutional disruption as a result of leaving the European Union, but I don't think we've gained all of the benefits, and that’s what I want to see."

Jenrick added that he would appoint hardline Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg, who lost his seat in the July election, as Conservative Party chairman if he is chosen as leader.

Seat: Jenrick held his seat in Newark with 20,968 votes to the Labour candidate's 17,396.

• Read more: 'My party need decisive change - and Robert Jenrick can deliver it' (Telegraph opinion)

Round four results:

Kemi Badenoch - 42

Robert Jenrick - 41

James Cleverly - 37 (eliminated)

Round three results:

James Cleverly - 39

Robert Jenrick - 31

Kemi Badenoch - 30

Tom Tugendhat - 20 (eliminated)

Round two results:

Robert Jenrick - 33

Kemi Badenoch - 28

James Cleverly - 21

Tom Tugendhat - 21

Mel Stride - 16 (eliminated)

Round one results:

Robert Jenrick - 28

Kemi Badenoch - 22

James Cleverly - 21

Tom Tugendhat - 17

Mel Stride - 16

Priti Patel - 14 (eliminated)