Priti Patel

In the 1960s, her parents emigrated to the UK and settled in Hertfordshire.

They established a chain of newsagents in London and the South East of England.

She was raised in a Hindu household.

Dame Priti Sushil Patel (born 29 March 1972) is a British politician who served as Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022.

Patel was born on 29 March 1972 to Sushil and Anjana Patel in London.

Her paternal grandparents were born in Gujarat, India, before emigrating to Uganda, and running a convenience store in Kampala.

She joined the Conservative Party in 1991, when John Major was prime minister.

After graduating, Patel became an intern at Conservative Central Office (now known as Conservative Campaign Headquarters), having been selected by Andrew Lansley (then Head of the Conservative Research Department).

From 1995 to 1997, Patel headed the press office of the Referendum Party.

In 1997, Patel rejoined the Conservative Party having been offered a post to work for the new leader William Hague in his press office, dealing with media relations in London and the South East of England.

In 2000, Patel left her job at the Conservative Party to work for Weber Shandwick, a PR consulting firm.

In August 2003, the Financial Times (FT) published an article citing quotes from Patel and alleging that "racist attitudes" persisted in the Conservative Party, and that "there's a lot of bigotry around".

Patel wrote to the FT countering its article stating that her comments had been misinterpreted to imply that she had been blocked as a party candidate because of her ethnicity.

The crisis eventually ended with BAT pulling out of Burma in 2003.

The article went on to quote BAT employees who felt that though a majority of Weber Shandwick employees were uncomfortable working with them, Patel's group was fairly relaxed.

After she unsuccessfully contested Nottingham North at the 2005 general election, the new Conservative leader David Cameron recommended Patel for the party's "A-List" of prospective parliamentary candidates.

Patel has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Witham since 2010.

She is ideologically on the right wing of the Conservative Party; she considers herself to be a Thatcherite and has attracted attention for her socially conservative stances.

Patel was born in London to a Ugandan-Indian family.

She was educated at Keele University and the University of Essex.

Inspired to get involved in politics by the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, she was involved with the Referendum Party before switching allegiance to the Conservatives.

She worked for the public relations consultancy firm Weber Shandwick for several years before seeking a political career.

She was elected MP for Witham, a new seat in Essex, at the 2010 general election, and was then re-elected in 2015, 2017, and 2019.

As a backbencher, Patel was vice-chair of the Conservative Friends of Israel and co-wrote a number of papers and books, including After the Coalition (2011) and Britannia Unchained (2012).

Her father Sushil was a UKIP candidate for Hertfordshire in 2013.

Patel attended a comprehensive school in Watford before going on to study economics at Keele University.

She then pursued postgraduate studies in British government and politics at the University of Essex.

The former Conservative leader and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher became her political heroine: according to Patel, she "had a unique ability to understand what made people tick, households tick and businesses tick. Managing the economy, balancing the books and making decisions—not purchasing things the country couldn't afford".

Under the coalition government of Cameron, she served as Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 2014 to 2015.

After the 2015 general election, Cameron promoted her to Minister of State for Employment, attending Cabinet.

According to an investigative article published by The Guardian in May 2015, Patel was one of seven Weber Shandwick employees who worked on British American Tobacco (BAT)—a major account.

The team had been tasked with helping BAT manage the company's public image during the controversy around its Burma factory being used as source of funds by its military dictatorship and poor payment to factory workers.

A member of the Conservative Party, she was Secretary of State for International Development from 2016 to 2017.

A longstanding Eurosceptic, Patel was a leading figure in the Vote Leave campaign for Brexit during the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union.

Following Cameron's resignation, Patel supported Theresa May's bid to become Conservative leader; May subsequently appointed Patel Secretary of State for International Development.

In 2017, Patel was involved in a political scandal involving unauthorised meetings with the Government of Israel which breached the Ministerial Code, causing May to request Patel's resignation as International Development Secretary.

Under Boris Johnson's premiership, she became Home Secretary in July 2019.

In this role, she launched a points-based immigration system, an asylum deal with Rwanda to address the English Channel migrant crossings, advocated the passage of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022, and approved the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States.

She was also found to have breached the Ministerial Code in relation to incidents of bullying.

Following the resignation of Johnson and subsequent election of Liz Truss as Prime Minister, Patel resigned as Home Secretary on 6 September 2022.