More than a dozen meetings were arranged for Patel by Stuart Polak, honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel

Stuart Polak, the driving force behind the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI), played a pivotal role in Priti Patel’s off-radar meetings with Israeli politicians and organisations.

The CFI’s honorary president arranged a dozen meetings during Patel’s summer holiday in Israel and was in attendance at all but one of them. He also accompanied her to meetings in September with an Israeli minister, Gilad Erdan, and Yuval Rotem, a government official.

Lord Polak has spent 28 years lobbying on behalf of the Israeli state, first as its director, and now – after being ennobled by David Cameron in 2015 – its honorary president.

“He’s given his entire life to CFI, when the Conservatives have been in government and out, and when Israel has had lots of friends and few friends. It’s his life’s work,” said an associate.



“He’s built up contacts over generations of Tory MPs, and in the [Jewish] community he’s seen as someone who’s really put in the graft. In a world of people always trying to get ahead or promote themselves, Stuart is seen as someone who really cares about the issue. He’s a decent guy.”



Another associate said: “Stuart is a very serious wheeler-dealer, mover and shaker within the Conservative party. Everything to do with lobbying [for Israel] goes through Stuart.”



CFI, according to its website, organises events in and around Westminster, takes Conservative MPs and parliamentary candidates on (all-expenses-paid) visits to Israel, campaigns for Tory candidates in target seats, and “works to ensure that Israel’s case is fairly represented in parliament”. It has more than 2,000 members, including a very large proportion of the parliamentary party.



It hosts an annual lunch for hundreds of guests, often addressed by the leader of the Conservative party. One former Tory MP said CFI was “extremely well-funded and has a long reach throughout the party”.



In February this year CFI organised a delegation to Israel headed by the former Tory party and CFI chairman Eric Pickles to celebrate his knighthood. Pickles was accompanied by the former education secretary Nicky Morgan, the former pensions secretary Stephen Crabb, the former Northern Ireland secretary Theresa Villiers, a Tory high-value donor, Jitesh Gadhia – and Polak. The itinerary included political and security briefings, cultural and historical visits, and a trip to the West Bank.

Polak’s role at the heart of the Patel meetings may have been an uncharacteristic misjudgment, according to some. “He’s not a headline grabber – not because he’s some shadowy figure, but because he doesn’t look for a public profile himself. He was chuffed to get a peerage because it gave him a place even closer to government to do what he does. But it was never his intention to become part of the story,” said a former colleague.



Another person who has observed Polak over a number of years said: “I’m not terribly surprised by Stuart’s role in this. He does throw his weight around and let you know how important he is – and this episode shows how much weight he has.



“But Stuart of all people understands how politically sensitive Israel is. Should he have known better? Yes. For someone who’s been around for so long, I’m surprised his antennae didn’t go off. Perhaps he thought he could get away with it.”



The Tory MP Hugo Swire, a former Foreign Office minister, said in the Commons on Monday that Patel’s meetings raised questions about the influence of lobbyists. “What people want is transparency and accountability. It is time, finally, to address the issue of privileged access and lobbying and funding, if we are not to have this repeating time and time again,” he said.

Polak is also chair of the advisory board of TWC Associates, a “boutique consultancy specialising in the development of political strategy”, which lists among its clients several Israeli defence companies, including Elbit Systems which specialises in defence electronics.

