Theresa May is preparing to lose a second cabinet minister in a week, with speculation mounting that she will sack Priti Patel after summoning her back from a visit to Africa.

The international development secretary’s trip was cut short when she admitted two more previously undisclosed meetings with Israeli politicians, amid reports that she also breached protocol by visiting the Golan Heights.

Whitehall sources confirmed that Patel was flying back to London at the request of the prime minister. A source at the Department for International Development (DfID) said: “We can confirm that she is on the way back to the UK.”

It is understood Patel met the Israeli public security minister, Gilad Erdan, in parliament on 7 September, and foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New York on 18 September, following the August meetings in Israel.

Downing Street was told about the New York breakfast with Rotem when Patel revealed the details of her trip to Israel, but No 10 learned only on Tuesday about the meeting with Erdan.

No British officials were present and, as with her meetings in Israel, she did not report them to the Foreign Office or government in the usual way.

She was accompanied at all but one of the meetings in Israel by the honorary president of the Conservative Friends for Israel lobbying group, Stuart Polak.

Quick Guide Priti Patel's fall from grace Show 13 August 2017 Priti Patel goes to Israel on what she claims was a family holiday, which she paid for herself. 22 August 2017 Patel met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The meeting was not authorised in advance and no UK officials were present. She later claimed the Foreign Office was made aware of this meetings and others while her trip was under way.

Meanwhile, Patel’s deputy Alistair Burt and David Quarrey, the British ambassador to Israel, were meeting Michael Oren, a deputy minister at the Israeli prime minister’s office, according to the Jewish Chronicle. According to notes of the meeting, cited by the paper, Oren referred to Patel having had a successful meeting with Netanyahu earlier. 24 August 2017 Foreign Office officials became aware of Patel’s first meetings, according to a statement given to the Commons by Burt on 7 November. He did not mention his own visit to Israel. Hansard quotes Burt telling the Commons: “The Secretary of State [Patel] told Foreign Office officials on 24 August that she was on the visit. It seems likely that the meetings took place beforehand.” On the same day Patel met Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s Yesh Atid party, who describes her as a “true friend of Israel”. August 2017 On an undisclosed date during her trip, Patel visited an Israeli military field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. If confirmed, this would be a breach of a protocol that British officials do not travel in the occupied Golan under the auspices of the Israeli government.

25 August 2017 Patel leaves Israel after 12 work meetings, during two days of a 13-day holiday. As well as meeting Netanyahu, she also held talks with the public security and strategic affairs minister, Gilad Erdan, and an Israeli foreign ministry official, Yuval Rotem. The meetings were organised by Lord Polak, a leading member of the Conservative Friends of Israel. He accompanied Patel on all but one one of the meetings.

On her return to the UK, Patel inquires about using the UK aid budget to help fund the Israeli army’s humanitarian work in the Golan Heights. The idea is rejected because the UK does not recognise Israel’s permanent presence in the Golan Heights, which were seized from Syria in the 1967 war. 7 September 2017 Patel meets Gilad Erdan, the minister for public security, and is photographed with him on the House of Commons terrace.

18 September 2017 While in New York for the UN general assembly, Patel has another meeting with Yuval Rotem, an official from the Israeli foreign ministry.

2 November 2017 Theresa May meets Netanyahu in Downing Street.

3 November 2017 Patel told the Guardian that the foreign secretary knew about her trip and suggested the Foreign Office had been briefing against her. “Boris knew about the visit. The point is that the Foreign Office did know about this, Boris knew about [the trip],” she admitted telling the paper.

The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent James Landale reported that Patel had undisclosed meetings in Israel without telling the Foreign Office. He quoted one official as saying that Patel had been “pushing to get her hands on the Palestinian Authority aid budget and we have been pushing back”. 6 November 2017 Patel apologises after admitting she gave a misleading account to the Guardian of her trip to Israel. In a statement, she admits holding 12 meetings, including three with Israeli politicians – Netanyahu among them.

She said: “This quote [to the Guardian] may have given the impression that the secretary of state had informed the foreign secretary about the visit in advance. The secretary of state would like to take this opportunity to clarify that this was not the case. The foreign secretary did become aware of the visit, but not in advance of it.” She does not mention visiting the occupied Golan Heights or the two subsequent meetings in September. A No 10 spokesman confirms that Patel was rebuked for breaching the ministerial code. 7 November 2017 Patel avoids answering an urgent Commons question about her meetings in Israel because of a “longstanding commitment” to visit Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. The international development minister Alistair Burt is put up in her place. Burt points out that Patel apologised for the undisclosed meetings. He adds: “The department’s view is that aid to the IDF [Israeli Defence Force] in the Golan Heights is not appropriate.”

Downing Street initially backs Patel but later confirms that the prime minister was not informed about providing aid to Israel during her meeting the previous day. It is suggested Patel failed to disclose her two subsequent meetings in September with Israeli officials. A Whitehall source says: “There was an expectation of full disclosure at the meeting on Monday. It is now clear Priti did not do that. It will now have to be looked at again.” But according to the Jewish Chronicle, it was No 10 who told Patel not to include her meeting with Rotem in New York in her list of undisclosed meetings for fear of embarrassing the Foreign Office. DfiD confirms previously undisclosed September meetings with Erhad and Rotem in September. 8 November 2017 Patel resigns from the cabinet after being summoned back from a trip to Uganda and Ethiopia by Downing Street. In her resignation letter, released moments after she left No 10, Patel admitted her actions “fell below the high standards that are expected of a secretary of state”.

Patel had a crunch meeting at 10 Downing Street on Monday that was supposed to draw a line under the row. A Whitehall source said: “There was an expectation of full disclosure at the meeting on Monday. It is now clear Priti did not do that. It will now have to be looked at again.”

Patel is expected to become the second cabinet scalp in a week after Michael Fallon resigned as defence secretary last Wednesday. It later emerged that he was forced to quit after several allegations of sexual harassment.



As Patel was flying back to London from Africa, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that she visited an Israel Defence Forces field hospital in the Golan Heights as a guest of the Israeli government before suggesting Britain should help fund the field hospital’s operations.

Like the rest of the international community, the British government does not recognise Israel’s control of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during the six-day war in 1967.

The hospital is being run under the auspices of an Israeli military medical aid effort that has assisted both wounded civilians as well as wounded rebel Syrian fighters some of whom have been accused of being members of jihadist groups fighting the Assad regime.

Complicating Patel’s depiction of the visit as private, an Israeli military spokesman suggested her trip had been organised by the country’s foreign affairs ministry.

Asked whether the Israeli army facilitated the visit, Maj Jonathan Conricus told the Guardian: “She visited Israel. Please refer to the MFA [ministry of foreign affairs] for details, since they organised the visit.”

The prime minister faced accusations that she had been told of the New York meeting with Rotem, but actively told Patel not to disclose it. The suggestion was made in an article in the Jewish Chronicle.

But Downing street strongly rebutted the claim. They admitted that Patel had told May about the meeting and that it was part of the rebuke the international development secretary received on Monday.



However, they said the prime minister had not told Patel to keep it off the list. Instead, they said that had been drawn up by Patel and it was her choice to only include the meetings in Israel during the summer holiday.

A source said it was the revelation of the London meeting with Erdan that May was not informed about and was the reason that Patel had been summoned back to London.

The UK’s new defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, refused to directly answer questions about Patel’s future when he spoke to reporters on his way into a Nato summit in Brussels.

Patel has been under pressure to quit her post after failing to come clean with May over 12 other meetings she has held with senior Israeli figures, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

One of Patel’s backbench supporters, Nadhim Zahawi, offered only lukewarm backing for her on Wednesday. Zahawi, a member of the foreign affairs select committee, told BBC News: “It is totally in the gift of the prime minister [how] any cabinet minster should serve in government ... Ultimately it is up to the prime minister what she does if there are new revelations.”

The former Downing Street communications director Craig Oliver predicted Patel would be sacked.

It’s hard to draw any conclusion other than Priti Patel will now be sacked. I suspect she now wishes she’d resigned when she had the chance — Craig Oliver (@CraigOliver100) November 8, 2017

Patel avoided widespread criticism in the House of Commons of her conduct on Tuesday by travelling to Kenya before a planned visit to Uganda. Following DfID’s latest disclosures, meetings in Uganda were cancelled, the BBC’s assistant political editor, Norman Smith, reported.

Understood that two events Priti Patel was due to be attending in Uganda this morning have been cancelled — norman smith (@BBCNormanS) November 8, 2017

No 10 rebuked Patel after she gave the false impression in an interview with the Guardian that the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, and the Foreign Office knew about her meetings in Israel.

It also emerged she had failed to inform the prime minister of departmental discussions over plans to send aid money to the Israeli army to support humanitarian operations in the Golan Heights.

No 10 said on Tuesday that Patel had not informed the prime minister about the “aid to Israel” discussions at the meeting on Monday. Instead, May learned about the proposals from reports in the media, a Downing Street source said.

Lord Polak accompanied Patel at 13 of her 14 meetings with Israeli officials during August and September.



Conservative MPs failed to rally behind Patel on Tuesday when her conduct was debated in parliament, which will be noted by her critics within the cabinet and the party. Only four of her own party’s backbenchers spoke in the debate and expressed concerns and reservations about recent events.

May learned of Patel’s meetings with Israeli politicians on Friday – a day after the PM held a meeting with Netanyahu in Downing Street to mark the centenary of the Balfour declaration.

Patel has clarified the previous remarks to the Guardian in which she had appeared to suggest that Johnson knew of her schedule beforehand. A statement issued by Patel and DfID said: “This quote may have given the impression that the secretary of state had informed the foreign secretary about the visit in advance.

“The secretary of state would like to take this opportunity to clarify that this was not the case. The foreign secretary did become aware of the visit, but not in advance of it.”

Patel also said: “This summer I travelled to Israel, on a family holiday paid for by myself. While away I had the opportunity to meet a number of people and organisations. I am publishing a list of who I met.‎ The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was aware of my visit while it was under way‎.

“In hindsight, I can see how my enthusiasm to engage in this way could be misread, and 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.”

The Labour party called for an immediate investigation into whether Patel broke the ministerial code of conduct.