THREE Tory candiates have been eliminated in the first round of voting in the race to 10 Downing Street.
Andrea Leadsom, Esther McVey and Mark Harper are the first Tory MPs to exit the contest.
MvVey, Leadsom and Harper got only 9, 11 and 10 votes respectively, however candidates needed to receive 5%, or 16 votes, in order to progress to the next round.
313 votes were cast in the ballot, with Boris Johnson recieving 114 votes, greatly outstripping any other candidate.
Seven MPs will now be moving on to the next round, though no women will be moving on to the next round.
The final vote tally was as follows:
Boris Johnson - 114
Jeremy Hunt - 43
Michael Gove - 37
Dominic Raab - 27
Sajid Javid - 23
Matt Hancock - 20
Rory Stewart - 19
Andrea Leadsom - 11
Mark Harper - 10
Esther McVey - 9
The contest to succeed Theresa May as the UK's next prime minister has already been branded a "horror show" by Scotland's First Minister.
Nicola Sturgeon spoke out after frontrunner Boris Johnson unveiled a plan to give a massive income tax cut to higher earners south of the border.
The former foreign secretary wants to increase the threshold at which people in the rest of the UK start paying income tax at 40p from £50,000 to £80,000.
The change would not apply in Scotland, as the setting of income tax is now devolved to Holyrood ministers.
But it would be part funded by increasing employee national insurance payments, which Westminster has sole control over.
With this rise applying across the UK, SNP MSP Angela Constance said: "Scottish taxpayers now face the prospect of paying for a tax cut for the likes of Boris Johnson and his cronies."
She added: "That would be entirely indefensible - and is only likely to see a further rise in support for independence, which would give Scotland full powers over tax."
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