Priti Patel

Dame Priti Sushil Patel DBE (born 29 March 1972) is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, she was Secretary of State for International Development from 2016 to 2017. She is ideologically on the right wing of the Conservative Party; she considers herself to be a Thatcherite and has gained attention for her socially conservative stances. Patel has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Witham since 2010 and was appointed a DBE in Boris Johnson's Resignation Honours.

Patel as Home Secretary in 2019

Quotes

2014–2018

• Capital punishment [could] serve as a deterrent. I do not think we have enough deterrents in this country for criminals – let’s not forget that murders, rapists and criminals of that nature choose to commit the crimes that they commit.
  • Said during a Question Time debate. Quoted by The Independent. Priti Patel MP: Who is the new Treasury minister who supports death penalty and rejects plain packaging for cigarettes? (15 July 2014).

• While my actions were meant with the best of intentions, my actions also fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted and advocated. I offer a fulsome apology to you and to the government for what has happened and offer my resignation.
  • Said in her resignation letter to Theresa May in November 2017 after she had unauthorised meetings with Israeli officials while Secretary of State for International Development. Priti Patel quits cabinet over Israel meetings row (8 November 2017).

• There is still time to go back to Brussels and get a better deal.
  • Patel comments on no-deal Brexit in Ireland criticised (7 December 2018).

2019

• We must seize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity offered by the end of free movement
  • Written in an article in The Mail on Sunday. Quoted in the Evening Standard: New Home Secretary Priti Patel reveals plans for tougher borders with or without Breixt deal (28 July 2019).

• I want them [criminals] to literally feel terror at the thought of committing offences.
  • I want criminals to be terrified, says Priti Patel: New Home Secretary vows to return to zero-tolerance policing as she demands full explanation over bungled 'Nick' sex abuse inquiry (2 August 2019).

• The Conservative Party is the party of law and order. Full stop. The defence of our nation, defence of our streets and law and order are at the heart of our values.
  • I want criminals to be terrified, says Priti Patel: New Home Secretary vows to return to zero-tolerance policing as she demands full explanation over bungled 'Nick' sex abuse inquiry (2 August 2019).

• Modern policing must of course be visible policing and that means community policing, localised policing and having police visibility that police officers are empowered to do their jobs. For too long we’ve had our police forces, police officers tied up with regulation and bureaucracy. I want them to feel free to get on and do their jobs, I want them to know that we will support them.
  • Said in an interview with the Braintree and Witham Times. Priti Patel interview on stop and search, knife crime, social spending and terror comments (14 August 2019).

2020-2023

• I'm sorry if people feel that there have been failings.
  • Response when asked if she would apologise for the lack of PPE for frontline workers at a Downing Street coronavirus briefings (11 April 2020).

• What happened to these children remains one of the biggest stains on our country’s conscience.
  • Grooming gang ‘characteristics’ research to be published after government U-turn (19 May 2020)

• It's a stronger strain of the virus in the sense that it's more transmittable, it's a bouncy virus.
  • Speaking to Sky News and referring to the strain of SARS-Cov-2 which became prevalent in London in December 2020 Sky News Website 22 December 2020

• [H]ow can a handful of Members of Parliament in a committee, you know, really be that objective in light of some of the individual comments that have been made.
  I don’t want to name people but, you know, it is a fact, the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability ... I think there is a culture of collusion quite frankly involved here.
  • On GB News (16 March 2023) concerning the Privileges Committee investigation into Boris Johnson of the House of Commons reproduced in a privileges committee report on other parliamentarian's conduct during their investigation into Boris Johnson, cited in "The remarks that got these Johnson allies in hot water with the Partygate committee" ITV News (29 June 2023).
  • Patel, six other Conservative MPs and a member of the House of Lords were accused of placing "improper pressure" on the MPs investigating Boris Johnson.

• He [Boris Johnson] led the world in supporting Ukraine and defending our values, he got Brexit done, and he secured successes for the Conservative Party not seen since Margaret Thatcher.
  Boris is a political titan whose legacy will stand the test of time.
  • "Priti Patel: 'Boris is a political titan whose legacy will stand the test of time'" The Telegraph (9 June 2023).
  • Statement to The Telegraph after the former prime minister resigned as an MP.

Quotes about Priti Patel

• Being a person of colour does not automatically make you an authority on all forms of racism. We write to you as Black Asian and Ethnic Minority Labour MPs to highlight our dismay at the way you used your heritage and experiences of racism to gaslight the very real racism faced by Black people and communities across the UK.
  • A group of 12 ethnic minority Labour Party parliamentarians, including Indian-origin Virendra Sharma, Tan Dhesi, Preet Kaur Gill, Valerie Vaz, Seema Malhotra and Nadia Whittome in a letter to Priti Patel (11 June 2020).

• [In the late 1960s] When I was here as a very young person, people would not have had any problem about saying to your face certain words that we now consider to be offensive. It was much more pervasive, that sort of attitude. You couldn't even get on a bus without somehow encountering something that made you recoil...Things appear to have transformed [but] then we have new rules about detention of refugees and asylum-seekers that are so mean they seem to me to be almost criminal. And these are argued for and protected by the government. This doesn't seem to me to be a big advance to the way earlier people were treated....The curious thing, of course, is the person presiding over this is herself somebody who would have come here, or her parents would have come here, to confront those attitudes themselves.
• ["What would he say to her if she were here now?"] I would say, "Maybe a little more compassion might not be a bad thing." But I don’t want to get into a dialogue with Priti Patel, really.
  • Abdulrazak Gurnah, as cited in an interview "'I could do with more readers!' – Abdulrazak Gurnah on winning the Nobel prize for literature" The Guardian (11 October 2021)

• I felt a creeping anxiety that campaigners are being used, forced to play a bit part in Priti Patel’s nightmare vision of an ever more polarised, ever more angry nation. She proposes a vile policy, so people shout at her. She tries to do something illegal and judges oppose her. She characterises opponents as a mob and we sit down in the road. No wonder some of us feel as if we are being forced to fulfil a direction set by the government. It provides the plot, we are just the reaction shot. The government is pushing those who care about refugees – or about other, no less urgent issues – into a position of permanent protest.
  • Natasha Walter "It might be a culture war ploy, but Patel’s Rwanda plan is an abhorrence, with real consequences", The Guardian (19 June 2022).
  • The Conservative's Rwanda asylum plan was scrapped by the incoming Starmer government in July 2024.