Senior Tories are pushing for a change in the rules to allow three MPs to stand in the leadership contest.
MPs are worried that the vote expected in 2018 or 2019 could be a showdown between George Osborne and Boris Johnson, two privately educated Oxford graduates who were members of the same university drinking club.
MPs decide which two candidates should go on the ballot paper for election by the party membership. However, there is growing pressure to shake up the contest from figures unattached to any provisional leadership campaign. They hope that a change might allow a woman, a fresher face or someone from the right of the party to be in the ballot.
“This contest is about selecting the next prime minister,” said