Priti Patel is not known for her transparency or her subtlety.

The former international development secretary was forced to resign over misleading prime minister Theresa May over an undeclared “family holiday” to Israel that – among other things – saw her fail to tell the British embassy that she would be meeting with Israeli politicians and visiting the occupied Golan Heights, against all British government conventions for a serving minister.

But then Patel’s big ideas in office were always more about ideology and ambition than the development agenda.

In 2017, it was revealed that the pro-Brexit MP was seeking to link UK aid post-Brexit to oiling new trade deals.

Patel, you might think, given the nature of her departure, might not be best thought of as a star turn on the future of British aid, unless you are, of course – like her hosts the TaxPayers’ Alliance – essentially ill-informed and hostile to the idea of international development as most understand it.

In endorsing the pressure group’s new report, which calls for a shift in priorities in British aid, what Patel actually exposed was their profound shared misunderstanding of how aid works.

The organising idea was expressed by John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance. “Ministers,” he fulminated, “need to bring the development rules in house, face down the international NGO cartels and address the real effectiveness of aid spending by signing off every penny.”

For the group, whose main focus is lobbying for lower taxes, this apparently means shifting resources towards initiatives such as tackling piracy and drug busting, and supporting private sector investment, while directing money to smaller charities supposedly disadvantaged by the “NGO cartel”.

It might make for a good headline in the Tory press, but what O’Connell sees as a “cartel” – using the emotive language of international drug trafficking – is actually cooperation, often organised in humanitarian emergencies under the umbrella of the UN’s “cluster” system, which divides responsibilities to prioritise delivery, prevent duplication and cut waste.

And significantly, the reason why large organisations have been relatively successful in the delivery of aid and development funding is because they can operate quickly, on a large scale and with in-house expertise gained from years of experience.

As Dr Nilima Gulrajani, a senior research fellow at the Overseas Development Institute, told the Guardian: “A review of the evidence suggests that multilateral institutions are more focused on targeting poverty and development impact than bilateral channels.

“Aid recipients find that assistance is more predictable, more responsive, better coordinated and allows for greater flexibility [when it operates through multilateral channels].”

This is evidence of an 'anti-aid agenda that is now becoming brazen within parts of parliament'

And ultimately, what all this was about (again) was Brexit, and its little Englander view of the world, as Patel could not restrain herself from letting slip. “We have a leadership role to play in the world,” she added as a codicil, “and, actually, Brexit helps with that.”

As World Vision’s UK chief, Tim Pilkington, remarked sharply in public (and others in private), Monday’s event represented more than that – it is evidence of an “anti-aid agenda [that] is now becoming brazen within parts of parliament.”

“Diverting funds from the world’s poorest communities under the guise of taking back control in the UK is shameful, and incompatible with a truly global Britain,” he added. “[It is] a dereliction of our responsibility as a nation.”