A Real Shame As Big Israel Supporter Priti Patel Resigns from The Government.hare
Theresa May is facing a second cabinet reshuffle in a week, as she comes
under pressure to say what the Foreign Office knew of Priti Patel's visit to
Israel.
Ms Patel resigned as international
development secretary on Wednesday after holding a series of unauthorised
meetings with Israeli officials. In a letter to the PM, she said she
had lacked "transparency and openness". However, Labour has now called on Mrs
May to say when government officials knew about the undisclosed meetings.
Ms Patel resigned having been told by
the prime minister to return from an official trip in Africa and report to
Downing Street. It is the second cabinet resignation
in the space of seven days, after Sir Michael Fallon quit as defence secretary
last week. He was replaced by Gavin Williamson, as Mrs May adjusted her government
team. A replacement for Ms Patel, who was a
key figure in the Vote Leave campaign, is expected to be announced on Thursday,
with a lot of attention on whether or not it goes to a Brexiteer.
The row began last week, when the BBC
revealed Ms Patel arranged a number of private meetings with business and
political figures during a family holiday to Israel in August. After the visit, she asked her
officials to look into whether Britain could support humanitarian operations
conducted by the Israeli army in the occupied Golan Heights area. But Foreign Office officials strongly
advised against this as the need for humanitarian aid was greater elsewhere and
giving aid to the military broke aid rules, BBC diplomatic correspondent James
Landale said.
Ms Patel, who has served as the Tory
MP for Witham in Essex since 2010, was formally reprimanded in Downing Street
on Monday. She was asked to give details about
the meetings, which were not sanctioned by the Foreign Office, and to correct
information she initially gave when details of the meetings were published.
It later emerged that she had held
two further meetings in September with Israeli public security minister Gilad
Erdan in Westminster and Israeli foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New
York - again without government officials present. Asked if Ms Patel had been foolish or
had made a concerted attempt at freelance foreign policy, the BBC's James
Landale told BBC Radio 4's Today: "I think it's pretty clear that the view
within the government is there was an attempt to try to shape British policy
within the Middle East." Labour has now called on the
government to set out what Foreign Office officials knew of the meetings.
Writing to Mrs May, Labour's deputy
leader Tom Watson said: "I have been informed that while she was in
Israel, Ms Patel met officials from the British consulate general Jerusalem,
but that the fact of this meeting has not been made public," he wrote. "If this were the case, then it
would surely be impossible to sustain the claim that the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office was not aware of Ms Patel's presence in Israel." He added: "The existence of such
a meeting or meetings would call into question the official account of Ms
Patel's behaviour, and the purpose of her visit."
Middle East minister Alistair Burt
told MPs on Tuesday that Foreign Office officials in Israel were made aware of
Ms Patel's visit on 24 August and it was likely that her meetings had taken
place beforehand. Ms Patel was accused of breaching the
ministerial code - which sets out the standards of conduct expected of
government ministers. In her resignation letter, Ms Patel
said: "While my actions were meant with the best of intentions, my actions
also fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted
and advocated. "I offer a fulsome apology to
you and to the government for what has happened and offer my resignation."
In her reply, Mrs May said: ''As you
know the UK and Israel are close allies, and it is right that we should work
closely together. But that must be done formally, and through official
channels. ''That is why, when we met on Monday
I was glad to accept your apology and welcomed your clarification about your
trip to Israel over the summer. "Now that further details have
come to light it is right you have decided to resign.''
Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg
suggested disgruntled Remainers could be behind the leak that led to the
downfall of Ms Patel, who is a prominent Brexiteer. He told BBC's Newsnight that some
people were "still very bitter" about the referendum result and
"inevitably that colours their behaviour".
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