Patel forced to resign from Cabinet over Israeli dealings
- Zachary Ntim
- Nov 8, 2017
- 2 min read
Another day another resignation
It’s re-shuffle time!
Priti Patel has resigned as international development secretary after controversy over her meetings with Israeli officials.
The day began with news suggesting Patel had not travelled to Uganda, as arranged, and had been summoned back to London by the PM.
Because we are all political geeks with nothing else to do, we all monitored Patel’s 9-hour flight back from Nairobi, and made funny-ish political jokes:
As the day progressed, further details of Patel’s supposed side-job as ambassador to Israel were uncovered. Patel held further meetings, accompanied again by Israeli lobbyist Lord Polack, with Israeli ministers and businesspeople in London, without informing either the foreign office or the PM.
Now this is where it gets crazy. I turned away from the action for all but an hour to focus on you know, my actual life. Madness ensued:
It was reported that Patel visited the controversial Golan Heights region, a diplomatic no go zone, during her time in Israel.
The Jewish Chronicle claimed No.10 was entirely aware of Patel’s meetings in Israel.
Supporters of Patel double down saying, No.10 hid the meetings.
No.10 vehemently denied knowing anything about Patel’s meetings.
Patel’s estimated arrival time guessed.
Finally, she arrives in London and subsequently resigned. To be clear, Patel’s resignation was more of a heavy push to the sword rather than a noble fall.
All the Patel flavoured controversy has been a great distraction for Boris Johnson who seems to have complete job security, and Damien Green who should be following Patel out the door, following their own controversies.
This week has been so The Thick of It TV screens couldn’t do it justice. I bet May wishes she had a Malcolm Tucker right now, and if I was writing the next episode for this incredibly sad but funny TV show, Boris would be caught selling nukes to North Korea, David Davis and Liam Fox would fight it out in the commons, followed by another general election.
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