An Indian origin British politician Priti Patel on Thursday took charge as Britain’s home secretary, becoming the first woman of ethnic minority descent to hold the office. She was among the most vocal critics of Theresa May’s Brexit strategy.
She succeeds Pakistani-origin Sajid Javid, who moves to the Treasury department as the first ethnic minority Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Patel, 47, in reference to her new job at the helm of the UK Home office, said: “I will do everything in my power to keep our country safe, our people secure, and also to fight the scourge of crime that we see on our streets. I look forward to the challenges that now lie ahead,”
The Gujarati-origin politician served as a prominent member of the “Back Boris” campaign for the Conservative Party leadership and was widely backed for the best post in the prime minister’s frontline team.
Hours before her appointment was announced on Wednesday, she said: “It is important that the cabinet should represent modern Britain as well as a modern Conservative Party,” she said, hours before her appointment was announced on Wednesday.
Patel, a Eurosceptic, had directed the “Vote Leave” campaign in the lead-up to the June 2016 referendum in favor of Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU).
She first elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Witham in Essex in 2010 and earned eminence in the then David Cameron-led Tory government as his Indian Diaspora Champion.
She went on to be appointed to junior ministerial posts, in 2014 as treasury minister and after the 2015 general election, as employment minister, prior to May promoting her to the position of secretary of state in the Department for International Development (DfID) in 2016, until she was forced to quit the post in 2017.
“With Boris Johnson leading the Conservative Party and as prime minister, the United Kingdom will have a leader who believes in Britain, will implement a new vision for the future of the country and a roadmap to move forward and thrive as a self-governing nation that re-establishes our ties with our friends and allies around the world such as India,” Patel told PTI after Johnson secured a landslide victory in the Tory leadership contest earlier this week.
Ever since her time as Indian diaspora champion, Patel has been a rival of India-UK ties. She said: “He is committed to securing a new and improved trading relationship with our friends in India and ensuring that the values we share – the rule of law, democracy, and dynamic entrepreneurial spirit – should be at the heart of one of our most important partners on the global stage.
Patel is a prominent guest at all major Indian diaspora events in the United Kingdom, is seen as an avid supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the UK.
As a member of the UK Parliament’s influential Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), she was part of the team that recently released its damning report warning that the UK was falling behind in the race to engage with India at the end of a lengthy Global Britain and India parliamentary inquiry.
“Our report calls for the government to look again at the relationship between the UK and India,” Patel said, in reference to the “Building Bridges: Reawakening UK-India ties” report released early this month to mark the first-ever India Day in the UK Parliament.
“This should be a special relationship based upon the living bridge between our two great countries and a partnership we should be nurturing. The report covers many of the missed opportunities where the UK should be proactively and bilaterally enhancing our ties. We are soon to have a new PM in the UK, which will provide a welcome change in how we engage with India’s re-elected PM Modi,” she said at the time.
Patel once again returns as the seniormost British Indian member of the UK cabinet, having been forced to resign in November 2017 as International Development secretary amid a scandal over allegedly failing to disclose meetings with officials in Israel without notifying the UK Foreign Office.
She had maintained that it was a private visit and Johnson, then the UK foreign secretary, spoke out to back her.
Describing Patel as a “good friend” with whom he worked closely together for Global Britain, he had said it was “quite right that she meets with people and organizations overseas”.
But Patel was effectively sacked by May, forcing her to the Parliament backbenches, from where she continued to voice her criticism of May’s Brexit plan.
She was among the rebel Tory MPs who consistently voted against the former prime minister’s Withdrawal Agreement with the EU as a “bad deal for Britain”, which ultimately sealed May’s term at the top post.
