The vice-chairman of the Conservative Party has resigned from the role to be able to back a leadership candidate.
Kemi Badenoch announced her decision on Twitter on Thursday night.
She said: "The current leadership elections are probably the most important the party has ever had. We will be selecting a new Prime Minister and I want to play a role in ensuring we get the right leader for the country, for my constituency and for our party.
"I fully understand that CCHQ has to remain neutral during the process and I would not want to give any appearance of there being a conflict of interest.
"Therefore, it is with great regret that I will now step down from my role as vice-chairman to support and campaign for one of the candidates."
The MP, who represents Saffron Walden, has not stated which candidate she will back.
Her announcement comes after the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs revealed the timetable for the upcoming leadership election, due to kick off officially on Friday.
The committee will oversee the hustings and balloting of Conservative MPs to whittle the field of candidates.
The number of runners, currently standing at 11, will be whittled down to two.
The final two will go to hustings around the country, in a bid to convince Conservative Party members to vote for them in the final ballot.
In the week of July 22 the new leader will be announced after a ballot of around 160,000 party members.
