Priti Patel is flying back to the UK after cutting short an official trip to Africa on the orders of Theresa May following fresh revelations that the International Development Secretary held “secret” meetings with Israeli ministers in September.
But there is much media speculation about whether Patel withheld information from Downing Street about her high-level meetings or, in fact, kept the PM fully informed - with “unnamed sources” briefing both for and against the embattled minister while she was mid-flight.
Patel apologised on Monday after it emerged that she met with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials during a trip to Israel in August - but details of two further undisclosed meetings have since emerged.
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Patel reportedly met Israel’s public security minister, Gilad Erdan, in Parliament on 7 September, and foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New York on 18 September, says Sky News.
So did Patel fail to mention the Erdan meeting to May before apologising on Monday, as the website says? The PM reportedly reprimanded Patel over the August meetings, which took place during what Patel described as a “family holiday”.
“I would have thought this was a resigning matter,” Labour MP Maria Eagle told HuffPost.
But the Jewish Chronicle’s Stephen Pollard claims that Downing Street was informed about Patel’s meeting with Netanyahu hours after it occurred, and that May did know about the two additional meetings held in September.
Information from two senior sources indicates “that Ms Patel did disclose the meeting with Mr Rotem but was told by No. 10 not to include it as it would embarrass the Foreign and Commonwealth Office”, says Pollard.
No. 10 has dismissed the Jewish Chronicle report as inaccurate, according to Sky News reporter Jason Farrell.
Patel allegedly breached the ministerial code by holding the Israeli meetings without informing the Foreign Office or the Prime Minister in advance. However, May has been slow to discipline her, having already lost one Tory Cabinet minister - former defence secretary Michael Fallon, who quit last week - to a growing Westminster sex scandal, and with more ministers likely to be sacked, The Daily Telegraph says.
“Theresa May’s weakness as PM has allowed her most ambitious ministers to do their own thing,” The Guardian reports. “As a prime minister drained of authority struggles to hold her party together, ambitious ministers feel increasingly able to cock a snook with impunity.”
As Patel endures a nine-hour flight back from Kenya after less than a day in Africa, flight tracker website Flightradar24 revealed on Twitter that 22,000 people are following the progress of her plane.
Meanwhile, her fate and career prospects also remain up in the air.
