Priti faces axe for Israel jaunt
Fury over her 12 secret meetings with officials
INTERNATIONAL Development Secretary Priti Patel could be sacked after she suggested British aid money should be given to the Israeli army.
Following secret talks with the country’s prime minister, senior Tories said she would be axed in the next reshuffle.
Last night there was speculation that she could be sacked as early as today. The news follows revelations that she held 12 unauthorised meetings with Israeli ministers and officials while on a ‘family holiday’ in August.
Theresa May, who only learned of the meetings from media reports on Friday – the day after she hosted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu – demanded an apology from Miss Patel on Monday and formally reprimanded her.
Miss Patel narrowly avoided the sack after the PM decided she could not risk destabilising the Government further after Sir Michael Fallon quit over sexual harassment claims last week.
But Downing Street’s stance hardened yesterday after it emerged that Miss Patel had tried to divert some of Britain’s aid budget to humanitarian work by the Israeli army in the disputed Golan Heights. Britain accuses Israel of occupying the territory illegally.
No10 indicated that she did not mention the proposal in talks to ‘clear the air’ with Mrs May on Monday – leaving the PM to hear the facts in a BBC report. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: ‘No one, least of all the Secretary of State herself, is pretending she handled this well. That is why she apologised and the PM reminded her of her responsibilities.’
Tory MPs refused to come to her aid yesterday during a Commons statement on her conduct in which she faced renewed calls to resign.
Miss Patel admitted on Monday that she held 12 secret meetings with Israeli ministers, officials, businessmen and charity bosses during a two-week holiday with her husband and son in August. She also admitted giving a misleading account of the visit when details of the trip began to emerge on Friday.
She was accompanied by Lord Polak, honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel lobby group, which has given the Tories almost £400,000.
No officials were present at the meetings and no minutes were taken. The Foreign Office was not informed until August 24, after they had taken place.
Yotam Polizer, of the IsraAID organisa- tion, which Miss Patel met, said the meeting had been arranged two weeks in advance – suggesting it was fixed before she left the UK. The DfID did not respond to requests for information.
No10 refused to say yesterday whether Miss Patel broke the ministerial code. But Mrs May has asked Cabinet Secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood to tighten it to so ministers cannot hold secret meetings with foreign governments.
Labour claimed Miss Patel was guilty of four separate breaches of the code and called for her to resign. Kate Osamor, the party’s international development spokesman, said: ‘It is hard to think of a more black-and-white case of breaking the ministerial code of conduct.
‘But rather than change the minister, the Prime Minister somehow decided the code itself needed changing.’
Miss Patel was absent from the Commons during questions about her conduct because she was flying to Africa.
Instead, Middle East Minister Alistair Burt told MPs that she had tabled proposals to use aid money to assist the humanitarian work of the Israeli Defence Force in the Golan Heights, adding that it had been ruled out immediately by the Foreign Office as ‘not appropriate’.
Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian Authority’s ambassador to the UK, said the news was ‘shocking’ last night and asked why Miss Patel did not balance her meetings by talking to them.