Mr Michael Ancram has been rejected by MPs from Britain’s Tory leadership contest, leaving Mr Michael Portillo, Mr Kenneth Clarke, Mr Ian Duncan Smith and Mr David Davis to fight it out in the next round.
The former party chairman managed just 17 votes from his colleagues, while Mr David Davis received 18.
Mr David Davis has confirmed he will fight on to the next round of the Tory party leadership contest. The next round's voting will take place on Tuesday.
Emerging from the House Of Commons minutes after the vote was announced, he said: "This weekend there will be a big battle for votes."
Mr Ancram, who came last and is eliminated from the contest, said he had "no regrets" about standing. The fight will now be on to secure Mr Ancram's votes for the remaining candidates.
Mr Clarke's camp will be hoping most of the former party chairman's supporters can be persuaded to vote for him.
Supporters of Mr Portillo will be privately disappointed that he picked up only one vote from the two trailing candidates after Tuesday's vote.
Mr Portillo said: "The last couple of days there have been a lot of attempts to try and distract attention from what this campaign is really about. Despite this pretty concerted attempt, my vote has gone up and I'm well pleased with that and this was a period of a major onslaught on my campaign."
Mr Clarke said he was confident he would come in the first two of the final ballot to allow his name to go forward to party members.
PA