Support for junior minister Andrea Leadsom to become Tory leader as the Brexit- backing alternative to Michael Gove grew yesterday.

Mrs Leadsom leapfrogged the Justice Secretary in the race to No 10 after Iain Duncan Smith said he would back her. His endorsement is likely to be replicated by a string of MPs who had backed Boris Johnson.

Bookmakers were quick to install Mrs Leadsom as their second favourite candidate after Home Secretary Theresa May.

Up to 30 former Boris Johnson supporters are set to switch sides to back Mrs Leadsom as early as next week. The rise in support for the mother of three raises the prospect of two women facing each other in the final shortlist.

Andrea Leadsom (left) leapfrogged the Justice Secretary in the race to No 10 after Iain Duncan Smith (right) said he would back her

MPs see Mrs Leadsom as the best option among the Brexit backers, while others see her as a way of preventing Mr Gove from making it into the final two after he was accused of stabbing his ally Mr Johnson in the back.

Former Conservative Party leader Mr Duncan Smith said: 'Having known Andrea for some considerable time, I have huge confidence in her strength, her experience, her wide range of capabilities, her calm manner and her ability to achieve objectives even against considerable odds. She has warmth, a genuinely human touch and a great sense of humour. And her enormous depth of business experience speaks volumes for her ability to handle pressure.'

Mr Duncan Smith added: 'I know that she is just right person to lead our country through the negotiations to create the UK's new relationship with the rest of the world.'

Bernard Jenkin, who is also backing Mrs Leadsom, described her as 'a phenomenon'. He added: 'Andrea has moved up the betting index to second place. She's the underdog at this stage, I think – but she's a strong candidate.

Mrs Leadsom, a long-time Eurosceptic, said the country should not be run by someone who had fought to remain

'Most of the serious thinkers about the European issue are going to support her – and that is testament to her authority.'

The pledges of support came after Mrs Leadsom said the next Prime Minister must be someone who campaigned for Britain to quit the EU.

The Energy Minister highlighted her credentials for the top job as she won support from Parliamentary heavyweight Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary, and key Out campaign group Leave.EU.

Mrs Leadsom, a long-time Eurosceptic, said the country should not be run by someone who had fought to remain. That would rule out the bookies' favourite, Mrs May. Mrs Leadsom told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'I felt it was better to put my own name forward, because you do need a choice of candidates and it seemed to me that we might end up with only one candidate who had actually supported the Leave campaign.

'I was thinking about what is in the interests of the country, because to me the clear priority is to deliver on the referendum.

'We have been given an instruction, we now have to get a grip and get on with it. It [the new PM] has to be someone who really believes that the UK will be better off once we leave the EU.'

Mrs Leadsom, a star of the Vote Leave campaign with her positive vision for life outside the EU, refused to be drawn on claims that Mr Gove decided to run amid concerns about Mr Johnson's failure to promise her a top job if he won. Mr Paterson, a key Eurosceptic, said: 'The next Prime Minster has a crystal-clear mandate to bring us fully out of the EU and back onto the world stage where we belong.

'I believe there is one person who can fulfil this mandate. One woman who understands out means out. One woman who has an optimistic vision for our future.'

Leave.EU co-chairman Aaron Banks ruled out supporting Mrs May because she had backed Remain and said Mr Gove had 'poisoned relations' among Brexiteers.

He said: 'We need a clean break and a fresh face.

'Andrea was the breakout star of the Leave campaign during the referendum: calm, assured and, in contrast to May and Gove, honest; putting the case for Brexit eloquently and passionately. Leave.EU will therefore be throwing its full weight behind Andrea.'

Grammar school girl, star banker, mum of three, Christian and brilliant Brexiteer: ANDREW PIERCE on the woman who has her eyes on becoming Chancellor

Andrea Leadsom has impressed many voters who'd never heard of her before with her passionate and eloquent arguments for Brexit

Twelve months after she became an MP, Andrea Leadsom was warned by Chancellor George Osborne she would damage her ministerial prospects if she joined a Eurosceptic Tory revolt against the EU.

Leadsom, singled out as one of the brightest of the 2010 intake of MPs, responded in typically blunt fashion. She denies reports she swore at the Chancellor. But the conversation ended abruptly when Leadsom insisted that she would be backing a motion calling for a referendum on our EU membership.

The Chancellor – or at least his job – was very much on her mind this week during her negotiations with Boris Johnson before he abruptly quit the race to be Tory leader.

Leadsom, a leading figure in the Leave campaign, demanded the post of Chancellor, or Deputy Prime Minister in charge of negotiations for leaving the EU, as the price of her support.

When the shambolic Johnson failed to give her a written guarantee she would get one of the jobs, she entered the race herself. It was a typically resolute response from a woman who has impressed many voters who'd never heard of her before with her passionate and eloquent arguments for Brexit.

So who is the woman who has pitted herself against Theresa May, Michael Gove and the others for the Tory crown?

Leadsom, now 53, was born in Aylesbury and, having moved with her family to Kent, went to Tonbridge Grammar School. Unlike the Etonian prime minister she is seeking to replace, Leadsom does not come from a privileged background.

Home was a small terraced house in Berkshire. Her mother Judy divorced her father Richard – who ran a builder's merchant – when she was four, and then brought up her three girls while studying to become a nurse. Four years later, Judy remarried and decided to run a furniture shop with her second husband.

Leadsom studied Political Science at Warwick University, then became one of the few women on a trading floor in the City as a trainee trading metals. She became the youngest director of Barclays at the remarkable age of 32, when she was appointed head of UK banking

Leadsom studied Political Science at Warwick University, then became one of the few women on a trading floor in the City as a trainee trading metals. She then moved to BZW, the investment banking arm of Barclays. In 1993, she married Ben, a businessman, and after a rapid rise through the ranks, she became the youngest director of Barclays at the remarkable age of 32, when she was appointed head of UK banking.

MAYMENTUM! THERESA MAY RACES AHEAD IN LEADERSHIP CONTEST Theresa May's leadership campaign gained further momentum today as she was backed by senior Cabinet ministers Theresa May won the backing from two Cabinet ministers today as her campaign to be Tory leader and Prime Minister gathered momentum. The Home Secretary, gifted front runner status after Boris Johnson's campaign exploded yesterday, was endorsed by Defence Secretary Michael Fallon and Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin. One count of public declarations has Mrs May on 77 endorsements from Tory MPs, compared to the 21 secured by her current nearest rival Stephen Crabb. Michael Gove has secured 18 endorsements, Andrea Leadsom 17 and Liam Fox just nine - but more than half of Tory MPs are yet to declare a preference ahead of the first ballot on Tuesday. Mrs May appeared at Henley Royal Regatta in Oxfordshire today as Mr Gove laid out his claim to take the reins of the party. In a bizarre speech, Mr Gove insisted he was uncharismatic and had tried his hardest not to run - but in the face of the 'hinge of history' he was obliged to stand. Asked for her thoughts on Mr Gove's decision to stand as a candidate, the Home Secretary replied: 'I think it is important to have an open contest.' Former mayor of London Mr Johnson, who had spearheaded the campaign to leave Europe, suffered a crushing blow to his designs on power after Mr Gove withdrew his support. Earlier in the day the Home Secretary had made her pitch for taking the party forward, saying she would help navigate the country through its break with Europe. She added she was 'ready and able to do the job from day one'. A veiled attack on Mrs May was launched by the Justice Secretary on Friday, when he claimed he was the 'candidate for change'. He said the country needed someone with 'not just a cool head, but a heart burning with the desire for change'. Rival leadership contender Liam Fox said the feuding between the two men was a 'distraction' and that the country needed 'Brexit for grown-ups' in the wake of last week's referendum vote to leave the EU. And veteran former chancellor Ken Clarke told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I do think Michael Gove would do us all a favour if he were to stand down now.' A relaxed Mrs May boarded a boat at the Henley Royal Regatta today as she was embedded as the front runner in the race to replace David Cameron Andrea Leadsom appeared on the GMB sofa this morning to make her case and said she had put her name forward to ensure Tories had more than one Brexiteer to choose from Mr Gove's announcement, shortly after being appointed Mr Johnson's campaign manager, that he had realised the former London mayor did not have the necessary qualities to be PM was 'more suitable to the election of a student union than it is to be prime minister of this country at a time of pretty grave potential crisis', said Mr Clarke. Dr Fox, the former defence secretary who campaigned for Leave, said that Mr Gove and Mr Johnson appeared to be preoccupied with the student politics of their Oxford University days. 'We are now 10 weeks away from having a new prime minister, we're in the process of electing a prime minister who will actually take us out of the European Union, and yet we seem to be permanently distracted by what can only be described as the politics of the Oxford Union in recent days,' he told the Today programme. Ms Leadsom refused to comment on whether she thought Mr Gove had decided to run after growing concerned Mr Johnson would renege on policies because he failed to give her an assurance of a top job under his leadership. She told ITV's Good Morning Britain: 'In the end I felt it was better to put my own name forward, because you do need a choice of candidates and it seemed to me that we might end up with only one candidate who had actually supported the Leave campaign. 'I was thinking about it all the way through, but I was also thinking about what is in the interests of the country, because to me the clear priority is to deliver on the referendum. 'We have been given an instruction, we now have to get a grip and get on with it.' Michael Gove kicked off his campaign today, 24 hours after blowing Boris Johnson out of the race with a shock bid to enter the race himself Advertisement

There was a hitch, however. She was promoted to the board when she was seven months' pregnant, and was pressured to going back to work one week after giving birth. She recalled: 'I really struggled because I was desperate to be with my child. I said to the bank 'I can't cope with the hours'. I was just never getting to see my son.' She stuck with it for two years, and endured two miscarriages because of the stress of the work. When she requested a part-time role, the response was brutal. She was told: 'We have managed without senior women executives until now, we certainly don't need part-time ones.' They paid her to go quietly.

Leadsom's last big job in banking was as a fund manager at Invesco Perpetual. She also formed a buy-to-let property company with her husband. They have three children – Fred, 20, Harry, 18, and Charlotte, 12. She takes her daughter to school on the Underground, because during the week the family live in a cramped flat in Westminster. They also have a large 17th-century farmhouse in her South Northamptonshire constituency.

She's a serious film buff, though not everyone will applaud her all-time favourite film, Four Weddings and a Funeral, which she watches at least once a year.

Leadsom is also an avid reader, with what you might call eclectic tastes. Her two favourite books are The Wealth of Nations, the magnum opus by 18th-century economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. She also admits to loving the Australian children's classic Where's The Wombat? which she read to all her children. She is often spotted in the pubs near her home, and is a committed Christian who is part of the Bible study class at Westminster.

At weekends, she retreats to her constituency home, where every Sunday she cooks a family roast. She is an avid supporter of the Northampton Saints rugby team.

Children are important to Leadsom, who runs a charity that helps families struggling to cope with the arrival of a new child. She strongly believes that the life chances for youngsters are profoundly affected by their experiences during their first two years.

After a spell as a councillor in South Oxfordshire from 2003-07, she became MP for the safe seat of South Northamptonshire in 2010. In 2014, despite that early disagreement with the Chancellor, she became Economic Secretary to the Treasury. But within weeks, she was engulfed in controversy.

Leadsom had put the shares in her buy-to-let property company, Bandal (from which she resigned as a director before she joined the Treasury), into trusts for the benefit of her children. Accountants say that while this is not illegal, it has the potential to reduce the inheritance tax burden. There was further criticism when it was revealed she had received £70,000 from a firm based in London – but owned by her Guernsey-based brother-in-law, financier Peter de Putron – via a holding company in the British Virgin Islands tax haven.

Leadsom's husband Ben is a director of the firm which made the donation, which was used to pay the salaries of staff in Leadsom's Westminster office. The revelations attracted criticism because the payment came from an offshore firm at a time when the Chancellor was promising to crack down on offshore tax loopholes. A spokesman for Leadsom said at the time: 'The donations are made by UK companies, employing hundreds of UK staff, and generating UK profits – they are fully transparent and properly declared.'

After last year's General Election, Leadsom was promoted to Minister of State at the Department of Energy. During the referendum, she has come into her own. She traded blows in the TV debates with her boss Amber Rudd, the Energy Secretary, who was on the Remain side.

Leadsom impressed with her calm and reasoned economic arguments in favour of Brexit. But she was also privately critical of the Vote Leave campaign for not making a more robust economic case for leaving the EU, such as the possibility of striking new trade deals with the Commonwealth.

She was even more critical of Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, for allowing himself to be wheeled out by George Osborne to attack the Leave side. 'I expect the governor will be significantly regretting getting involved in politics, destabilising the markets in the exact opposite to the way he should do, and I'm quite sure that he will be wishing he hadn't done it,' she says.

Since putting her name forward for the leadership, it has been pointed out that she does not have Cabinet experience. Her response? 'Our current Prime Minister hadn't been in government at all before he become leader and then prime minister.'

Highly principled and her own woman, she refused to vote for same-sex marriage. 'I find myself genuinely torn ... I cannot vote against a measure that would mean so much to the minority of homosexual couples for whom marriage is the ultimate recognition for their genuine feelings for each other. Yet nor can I vote for a measure that risks centuries of faith-based belief in marriage.'

Leadsom is second favourite at 5/2 in the leadership contest, but she will have to work hard to find widespread support among the grassroots Tory members who make the final decision.

There is already speculation that if frontrunner May wins, she will make Leadsom Britain's first woman Chancellor.

Equally, Leadsom's admirers point out that at 53 she has something in common with her political heroine Margaret Thatcher. The Iron Lady was 53 when she became Tory leader in 1975. It may seem like a long shot, but maybe history could yet repeat itself.

Leadsom is second favourite at 5/2 in the leadership contest, but she will have to work hard to find widespread support among the grassroots Tory members who make the final decision