James Cleverly was knocked out of the Tory leadership race yesterday after claims that tactical voting by his supporters had backfired.
The Telegraph reports that, in a shock result, greeted with gasps in Parliament, Kemi Badenoch, the former business secretary, came top with 42 votes. Robert Jenrick, the former immigration secretary, was second with 41.
Despite coming top in Tuesday's third ballot with 39 votes - comfortably ahead of his rivals- Mr Cleverly, the former home secretary, slumped to last place in the final ballot of MPs on Wednesday, losing two key votes to the other candidates to total just 37.
Members of his campaign team said some of his supporters, on their own initiative and working on the premise that Mr Cleverly was safe, decided to back Mr Jenrick in order to put him in second place and exclude Mrs Badenoch.
One Cleverly-supporting MP said these games had had "disastrous results", adding: "Clearly, a lot of people took it upon themselves to play these kind of tactics, which in a small electorate can go very badly wrong.
"Quite a few colleagues who voted for other candidates will now be wondering what on earth they have done."
They added: "It was an inherent danger of coming first by such a wide margin in the third ballot - some people, off their own bat, decided to influence who came second, with disastrous results. What I do know is that no games were played by the core Cleverly team. We were very clear - no games. If you want Cleverly, vote Cleverly.
"But there has been rogue action in that we have ended up with a result people did not want. There will be some people who are angry, but the party has to unite."
The final two now take their campaigns to Conservative members across the country, with the winner announced on November 2.
They will face off in a televised question and answer session on GB News next Thursday.