Dame Priti Patel has become the fifth Tory MP to enter the contest to replace Rishi Sunak as party leader.

Taking to X, the former home secretary wrote: “I am standing to be the new Leader of the Conservative Party. We must unite to win!

“I can lead us in opposition and unite our party and get us match fit for the next election, with unity, experience and strength.”

Dame Priti has joined Mel Stride, Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick in the race.

Kemi Badenoch is expected to throw her hat into the ring before nominations close on Monday.

But Suella Braverman’s leadership ambitions have seemingly faltered, with previous supporters flocking to Mr Jenrick's campaign. 

Anyone keen on making a tilt at the top job needs nominations from 10 of the party’s 121 MPs.

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Under the rules of the election, MPs will hold a series of votes until they have whittled down the number of candidates to four.

They will then take part in a series of hustings events at the party’s conference at the end of September, after which MPs will select two candidates and with members then getting the final say.

The winner will be announced on November 3, two days before the US presidential election.

In an attempt to stop candidates and their supporters attacking each other, the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers is instituting a "yellow card system", in which any hopeful caught briefing against their rivals will be formally and publicly rebuked.

Nevertheless, the contest looks set to get fractious.

According to the Sunday Times, the Guardian is due to publish an investigation into Ms Bandeoch’s berhaviour in government. Her team say it is the product of a disgruntled former special adviser.

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Writing in the Telegraph, Dame Priti said she could deliver the “experienced and strong” leadership needed to unite the Tories’ disparate factions.

As leader she would use the “huge talent pool…of Conservative Party members” to “solve the big challenges that Labour, the Lib Dems and Reform don’t have answers to”, she wrote.

She said the party was a “grassroots movement” that should work from from the bottom up rather than from the top down.

She wrote that “rebuilding trust with an electorate who have stopped listening to us will be tough” and that the party must “reflect honestly on what went wrong” while avoiding a “soap opera of finger-pointing and self-indulgence”.

Dame Priti became an MP in 2010 and served in Cabinet positions under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, as international development secretary and home secretary respectively.