UK Government Minister has resigned due to informal and secret meetings with the Israel President. Here's all you need to know.
Background of Priti Patel
Priti Patel appeared to have a promising future within the Conservative Party. She has held many roles in the Government which led to her becoming the Secretary of State for International Development. This means she is responsible for development overseas and assisting developing countries aided by the UK.
She was considered to be a possible future Conservative leader as she has managed to hold the right side of the party. She is a long time critic of the European Union as well as voting against gay marriage and the smoking ban.
What has she done?
Patel was revealed to have been meeting with Prime Minister Benjaming as well as the government on several occasions where they were reported to have discussed official government issues. In normal circumstances, government ministers would usually inform the government of any official business overseas, but in this case, all meetings were kept as a secret.
Patel “inappropriately” then suggested that Britain dedicated some of their aid budget to the Israeli Army while also asking if her officials could support the Israeli Army's humanitarian efforts in the Golan Heights Area. This was seen as “inappropriate” as the UK has never recognised Israeli's control of Golan Heights previous to this.
Before resigning, Patel apologised for the meetings saying: "In hindsight, I can see...how meetings were set up and reported in a way which did not accord with the usual procedures. I am sorry for this, and I apologise for it,"
However, it has since emerged that she had two meetings in September without government officials where she had met the Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan in Westminster and Israeli foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem.
While this was going on, an article written by the Jewish Chronical claims that the government was aware of the New York meeting and told Patel not to make this public knowledge. However, the government denied this.
Due to this, Patel had to resign which has now caused Theresa May's cabinet to reshuffle following Sir Michael Fallon's resignation after allegations about his behaviour.