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Politics
Patrick Greenfield (now), Andrew Sparrow, Jessica Elgot and Claire Phipps (earlier)

Priti Patel forced to resign over meetings with Israeli officials – Politics live

Priti Patel leaves no 10 Downing Street.
Priti Patel leaves no 10 Downing Street. Photograph: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images

The headlines keep coming.

The Mirror has gone with “It’s Priti shambolic.”

“Fears government will collapse as Patel quits,” writes The Times.

The Sun has not gone with a big splash. Instead, Patel only makes the top of the paper with “Priti makes it 2 in week.”

Thank you for reading and commenting throughout the drama today.

Have a peaceful evening.

After a difficult day, May is currently celebrating 25 years of Paul Dacre as editor of the Daily Mail.

Robert Peston tweeted a photo earlier.

The headlines are grim reading for Theresa May.

The Telegraph has gone with “Another day, another crisis.”

The red tops are not even out yet...

Updated

Rory Stewart has a rival in the battle to replace Priti Patel as international development secretary. And he says he is “touched” by the support.

Updated

More reaction from Labour.

Kate Osamor, shadow international development secretary, has also called on the FCO and Number 10 to clarify what they knew and when they knew it.

Priti Patel appears to have breached the Ministerial Code, gone behind the Government’s back, and misled the British public.

After initially denying the allegations, then repeatedly changing her story and failing to disclose all of her meetings, it is right that she has now resigned. But we still need to know what was discussed in these meetings and what No 10 and the Foreign Office knew and when.

“Theresa May must get control of her chaotic cabinet and decaying government or step aside for Labour to govern for the many not the few.

The first Priti Patel front page pun is up. The first of many, no doubt.

“Fallon his sword” was the highlight from the Sun last week.

“Fools to the left of me, jokers to the right...” according to former Liberal Democrat leader.

This time last week, we were reacting to Michael Fallon’s resignation as defence secretary after admitting his behaviour towards women in the past had “fallen short.”

November 15th, 7pm - who should be worried? Boris? Green?

Boris has recently finished a meeting with Congress speaker Paul Ryan in Washington DC, but many have turned their attention to Johnson after his to Iran error.

The battle to replace Priti Patel as international development secretary has officially started.

Rory Stewart, Conservative MP for Penrith and The Border, tweeted from eastern DR Congo just minutes after Patel’s resignation became official. He is currently a minister of state at DfID, and wanted to highlight the great work they are doing in the Kivu region.

Here is another of Stewart’s videos from earlier today.

Foreign secretary Boris Johnson, who is currently in Washington DC, has reacted to Priti Patel’s departure.

The BBC are reporting Johnson said:

Priti Patel has been a very good colleague and friend for a long time and a first class secretary of state.

It’s been a real pleasure working with her and I’m sure she has a great future ahead of her.

The drama might be over for this evening.

Faisal Islam, political editor at Sky News, says a shuffle of Theresa May’s cabinet is not expected tonight.

Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson has welcomed Patel’s resignation, but he is not satisfied with Number 10’s account of events.

Watson has published a letter asking the PM to clarify what she knew and when she knew it.

Here are his questions:

  • Did Priti Patel meet UK consular officials while in Israel?
  • If so, what was the purpose of this meeting or meetings, and when and where did they take place?
  • Were any minutes taken?
  • Was Priti Patel acting with your authorisation in any of the meetings she held during her visit to Israel?
  • When were you made aware that Priti Patel had met officials from the British Consulate General Jerusalem during her visit to Israel?
  • When was the Foreign Secretary made aware that Priti Patel had met officials from the British Consulate General Jerusalem during her visit to Israel?
  • When did you become aware that Priti Patel was visiting Israel?
  • When did the FCO become aware that Priti Patel was visiting Israel?
  • Why was it not made public that Priti Patel had met British consular officials during her visit to Israel?
  • Did you, or did the FCO, request that information about Priti Patel meeting British consular officials be suppressed? If so, why? If not, why was it not published?

Updated

Not everyone is keen to give their reaction.

Lord Polak, the driving force behind the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and a key player in organising Priti Patel’s off-radar meetings with Israeli politicians and organisations, ran into a hotel’s massage room to avoid the press.

A massage therapist then asks reporters to leave.

More politicians are taking to social media to react to Patel’s departure.

None of it makes good reading for the PM.

My colleague Jessica Elgot has handed over the blog to me for the evening.

I will continue to follow reaction to Patel’s resignation.

Politicians are already reacting to Patel’s departure.

In a statement, Lib Dem deputy leader Jo Swinson said she had been “rightly been forced to step down for her cover up of meetings with foreign officials and the inappropriate requests for aid to be sent to the Israeli military in the Golan Heights.”

This was an appalling error of judgement and is nothing short of a major failure by the British government.

Number 10 must answer questions about their complicity in this scandal. Someone has been deceived, either the British people or the Prime Minister’s office. Whichever it is someone must be held to account.

Labour MP Alex Cunningham says Patel should have gone in her first meeting with the PM earlier this week.

However, Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, has said he is disappointed to see a leading Brexiteer leave the cabinet.

Exchange of letters between Priti Patel and Theresa May

Downing Street has released the resignation letter Priti Patel sent to Theresa May, and the prime minister’s reply.

The reply from the prime minister makes it very clear that it is the new details that have emerged over the past day which has meant Patel was forced to resign.

“Now that further details have come to light, it is right that you have decided to resign and adhere to the high standards of transparency and openness that you have advocated,” May’s letter said.

Patel’s resignation letter says her actions were made with the “best of intentions, my actions fell below the standards of transparency and openness that I have promoted and advocated.”

Page one of Priti Patel’s resignation letter to the prime minister
Page one of Priti Patel’s resignation letter to the prime minister. Photograph: Handout
Page two of Priti Patel’s resignation letter to the prime minister
Page two of Patel’s letter. Photograph: Handout
Theresa May’s letter accepting Priti Patel’s resignation.
Theresa May’s letter accepting Patel’s resignation Photograph: Handout

Updated

Priti Patel resigns as International Development Secretary

Priti Patel has resigned as International Development secretary.

The prime minister met her for a short meeting at Downing Street, shortly after Patel touched down from Nairobi from where she had been summoned earlier this morning.

Patel offered her resignation after more details emerged about her private meetings in Israel, just two days after May had been assured by Patel that there was no more to come out about her meetings.

It emerged she had not only spent time with the Israel prime minister and senior politicians, without telling Downing Street, but had visited the disputed territory of the Golan Heights and asked her department to look into whether British aid money could be sent to Israeli troops in the territory.

Patel is the second cabinet minister to resign from May’s cabinet in a week, after Defence Secretary Michael Fallon resigned amid allegations about inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Priti Patel leaves Downing Street

Patel has left Number 10 through the back door, journalists in Downing Street are reporting.

The meeting with the prime minister has lasted around half an hour. We’re still waiting to know the outcome, but it won’t be long now.

Updated

While we wait to hear the outcome of this meeting between May and Patel, former cabinet minister Sir Eric Pickles has been suggesting to the Daily Mail’s deputy political editor John Stevens that Patel would not have been in such trouble had she met leaders of a different country.

If Patel is forced out, a defence may emerge in the coming days that she has been singled out because the meetings were with Israel, though as the Times’ Literary Supplement’s editor Stig Abel points out Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights is a key factor.

The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg reports that a source close to Patel is saying she is preparing to resign rather than be sacked by May.

If Patel does resign, we would expect a formal exchange of letters between the prime minister and Patel to be released by Number 10 once the meeting is concluded.

Updated

The BBC’s Ben Wright reports that May has now arrived in Downing Street as well, through the back gates. The prime minister has made Patel wait... but not for too long it seems.

Updated

Priti Patel arrives at Downing Street for emergency meeting

Priti Patel has arrived at Number 10 in the last few minutes, with Sky News showing her walking from her car into the side entrance to the prime minister’s residence in Downing Street.

May is reported to have left the building a short while earlier for a routine engagement but she will return for a meeting with Patel shortly.

Here’s the video of Boris Johnson being confronted in the US by Channel 4 News over whether he will meet the family of British-Iranian woman Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Afternoon summary

  • Priti Patel, the international development secretary, has arrived back in the UK and is preparing for a meeting with Theresa May later this evening where it is expected that she will be sacked. The prime minister is angry that, at a meeting on Monday where Patel was supposed to reveal all about the extent of her unauthorised contacts with Israeli ministers and officials, she failed to mention a meeting she had in the House of Commons in September with the Israeli public security minister, Gilad Erdan. Patel was summoned back to London from Kenya this morning, and forced to cancel an official visit. According to one report, Patel went ahead with the meeting with Erdan, with no officials present, even though her department had advised against it. (See 8.54am.) As a result she appears to have lost the trust of May, although a report in the Jewish Chronicle - which Downing Street has denied - claiming that May knew more about Patel’s Israel politicking than she has admitted has led to opposition parties challenging May to make a public statement about exactly what she knew, and when.

The events of 2010 concerning myself and a former member of staff have been reported outside the context and circumstances in which they occurred.

At the time we were friends, and I want to be clear that I did not force or pressure her into doing anything.

It is right that the public expect high standards of behaviour from their elected representatives, and I apologise to my constituents that this situation has occurred.

  • The Canary Islands are bidding to maintain free movement, trade, services and capital with Britain after its exit from the European Union, Tenerife’s president has said. As the Press Assocation reports, Carlos Alonso said the UK market was the largest source of tourism for the island and the Canary government wanted to maintain the “fruitful relations with our British friends”. The plans to be submitted would involve negotiation with both the Spanish government and the EU to strike a deal to provide special conditions for the Canaries, an autonomous state from Spain, he added. Alonso said: “The aim is to maintain the existing conditions and relations between the Canaries and the UK and therefore exclude the Canaries and Tenerife of the effects of Brexit.”

That’s all from me for today.

My colleague Jessica Elgot is now taking over.

Updated

There have not been many Tory MPs taking to the airwaves today defending Priti Patel. But James Duddridge has just been on the BBC praising her performance as international development secretary. He said he hoped Theresa May decides not to sack her, and settles for a reprimand instead.

Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, has been speaking to reporters in America. He confirmed that he would try to meet Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s family before he visited Iran in the next few weeks. He was then challenged to admit that what he said last week about Zaghari-Ratcliffe teaching journalism when she was in Iran wasn’t just taken out of context (as he claimed in the Commons on Tuesday), it was wrong. Johnson replied:

I think you’ll find I went into that in great detail in the HOC yesterday and clarified the matter I think perfectly.

Asked if he got his facts wrong, he said:

You will find if you study what I said in the HOC yesterday, I refer to my comments in the HOC yesterday that it’s all there. Thank you very much.

The Press Association’s David Hughes has filed a guide to possible replacements for Priti Patel. Here it is in full.

Sir Alan Duncan - Currently Boris Johnson’s deputy in the Foreign Office, Sir Alan was at Oxford University at the same time as May and preceded her husband Philip as president of the Oxford Union. He has previously been a minister in the department for international development (DfID). As a remain supporter, his appointment could upset Brexiteers.

Penny Mordaunt - The work and pensions minister had been viewed as a contender for the Defence Secretary role and would give May the opportunity of replacing Patel with another female Brexit-backer, maintaining the sensitive political balance in cabinet and the current split in terms of male and female ministers. The Portsmouth North MP wore her swimsuit to appear on ITV diving competition Splash in 2014 to raise money for charity.

Rory Stewart - A former soldier, diplomat and writer, the Penrith and the Border MP’s life has been so colourful that Brad Pitt’s production company reportedly bought the rights for a biopic. Currently a joint DfID and Foreign Office minister, Stewart had a short stint as an officer in the Black Watch before a diplomatic career which saw him become deputy governor of two provinces in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. Backed remain in the EU referendum.

Anne Milton - She has held frontbench roles in opposition and government since 2006, rising to minister of state in the department for education, and could be viewed as having the necessary experience for a cabinet job. The Guildford MP did not disclose which side she supported during the EU referendum battle.

Alistair Burt - A veteran with a ministerial career which began under John Major. He is currently a joint DfID-Foreign Office minister and was sent out to respond to MPs’ questions on Patel’s controversial “holiday” to Israel on Tuesday while his boss flew to Africa for her soon-to-be-curtailed trip. Backed remain in the referendum.

Theresa Villiers - Resigned from government when Mrs May took office and replaced her as Northern Ireland secretary, offering her a more junior role instead. A prominent Brexit-backer, a return to the cabinet would help maintain the current balance in May’s top team.

In his Jewish Chronicle article Stephen Pollard writes:

On 22 August - the same day as Ms Patel spoke to Mr Netanyahu - Middle East minister Alistair Burt and David Quarrey, the British ambassador to Israel, met Michael Oren, deputy minister at the Israeli prime minister’s Office. According to the notes of the meeting, Mr Oren referred to Ms Patel having had a successful meeting with Mr Netanyahu earlier.

Foreign Office sources are disputing this. Burt did have a meeting with Oren that day, but he was accompanied by the deputy head of mission at the UK embassy, Tony Kay, not the ambassador. And sources say Burt was not told that Patel had had a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu earlier.

Priti Patel’s lengthy “back for the sack” air journey has brought much joy to social media. My colleague Martin Belam has a good round up.

The Spectator’s James Forsyth is floating the idea that Nicky Morgan could be brought back to the cabinet to replace Priti Patel. Morgan was sacked as education secretary by May last year, and then she infuriated May’s aides by giving an interview criticising May for wearing expensive trousers for a photoshoot. She is not hardly a May loyalist. But she is well qualified to do the job, and, as Forsyth argues, having her in the cabinet would stop her voting against the EU withdrawal bill. She is one of the nine Tories who have been particularly prominent in signing rebel amendments to the bill.

Priti Patel is not heading straight for Number 10, according to LBC’s Theo Usherwood.

This is from the Independent’s Joe Watts.

This is from the BBC’s Julia Macfarlane.

Priti Patel leaves Heathrow

BBC News has just shown footage of Priti Patel getting into a ministerial car at Heathrow. It is not very clear, but she is the figure sitting in the back in the car on the right, with her hand reaching out to close the door.

Priti Patel getting into car (top right).
Priti Patel getting into car (top right). Photograph: BBC

This is from HuffPost’s Paul Waugh.

BBC News has just broadcast some aerial footage of the plane from Kenya that has landed at Heathrow that we assume is carrying Priti Patel. It is at the landing dock now, and there seem to be three black ministerial-style limos waiting alongside, which could well be there to pick up the international development secretary.

The Kenya Airways plane thought to be carrying Priti Patel - and ministerial-style limos waiting alongside
The Kenya Airways plane thought to be carrying Priti Patel - and ministerial-style limos waiting alongside Photograph: BBC News

According to the Times’s Henry Zeffman, Priti Patel’s phone is back on.

According to “an ally” of Priti Patel’s quoted in a Telegraph story (paywall), the international development is not going to go down without a fight. The ally is quoted as saying:

[Patel is being made a scapegoat, it is not credible that the Foreign Office knew about these meetings but Downing Street did not. She left for Uganda after apologising and being told that she was safe - now they are bowing to pressure.

She is going to be pretty angry if she is sacked and she could do some pretty hard damage to Downing Street. No 10 is being naive, the prime minister will create an even bigger problem for herself if she sacks Priti.

Priti Patel’s plane (or at least the plane we all think she’s on) has landed. This is from LBC’s Theo Usherwood.

With Priti Patel’s future up in the air - figuratively and metaphorically - today could be a good time to bury bad news. But surely it’s a coincidence that the Student Loans Company has today announced that it was sacking its chief executive, Steve Lamey, after an investigation lasting nearly four months:
“Following investigations into allegations about aspects of his management and leadership, the SLC has decided to terminate Steve Lamey’s contract as chief executive officer of the Student Loans Company,” the company said in a statement.

The SLC and its shareholders expect the highest standards of management and leadership and these were not upheld by Mr Lamey during his time in this role.

Peter Lauener, the current chief executive of the Education and Skills Funding Agency and the Institute for Apprenticeship, will take over later this month as interim chief executive. A new leader is expected to be appointed by early next year.

Obviously this is more bad news for the agency that administers more than £100bn in student loans, at a time when the underlying tuition fee and loan policy is highly controversial.

With the government increasingly resembling a sinking ship, Damian Green, the first secretary of state and de facto deputy prime minister, has staged an appropriate photo opportunity.

Madame Tussauds have been unveiling their new waxwork Theresa May today.

Madame Tussauds unveils their new wax model of Theresa May.
Madame Tussauds unveils their new wax model of
Theresa May. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters
A stylist making the finishing touches to a newly unveiled wax figure of Theresa May.
A stylist making the finishing touches to a newly unveiled wax figure of Theresa May. Photograph: Madame Tussauds/EPA

They will also be hoping that they don’t have to decommission their new Boris Johnson anytime soon.

New wax models of Theresa May and Boris Johnson.
New wax models of Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Photograph: Dylan Martinez/Reuters

Downing Street says the Jewish Chronicle is wrong when it says Number 10 told Priti Patel not to include a meeting that she had with the head of the Israeli foreign Office, Yuval Rotem, in September in a list of meetings with Israeli ministers and officials she published on Monday. (See 12.33am.)

But my colleague Anushka Asthana says Number 10 did know that Patel had had the meeting with Rotem in New York in September. Downing Street is just contesting the idea that it was responsible for this being left off the list published on Monday.

My colleague Jonathan Freedland has written a column about Priti Patel’s downfall. He reckons the biggest beneficiary is Boris Johnson.

Here’s an excerpt.

The Financial Times reckons Johnson might “be the least distinguished figure to occupy the Foreign Office” since 1945. That verdict is damning, but deserved. Patel’s behaviour was egregious, but it’s Johnson’s that has exacted the greater human cost - even if, thanks to Patel, it has got less attention. The very least we should expect is that he be fired. That he is likely to survive only confirms the paralysis of a prime minister heading a government decaying by the day.

And here is the whole article.

Theresa May urged to make statement clarifying exactly what she knew and when about Patel's Israel meetings

With Number 10 and the Jewish Chronicle at loggerheads over various questions of the classic “who know what, when?” variety (see 12.33am and 1.23pm), opposition parties are saying Theresa May now needs to make a full statement to clear everything up.

Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, said in a statement:

If [the Jewish Chronicle allegations] are correct this goes straight to the prime minister’s door and calls into question the integrity of the prime minister herself, who must now make clear what she knew, what Downing Street knew and when, and she must do so today.

This is a humiliating set of circumstances - not just for Priti Patel but Theresa May and her entire government.

And Jonathan Bartley, the co leader of the Green party, said:

If true, today’s revelations show that the lies in government go right to the top. The prime minister should make a public statement detailing exactly what was known and when. And if Number 10 knew about Priti Patel’s additional meetings in Israel and lied about it, the prime minister should clearly consider her position.

Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, has just told Sky News that he stands by his story about Theresa May knowing more about Priti Patel’s Israel meetings than Number 10 says, despite the strong denial from Downing Street. (See 12.33pm.) He said his two sources were “very reliable” and that they had never tried to spin him in the past. He went on:

Number 10 are going to deny it, aren’t the? As Mandy Rice-Davies put it, they would say that, wouldn’t they? All I know is what I’ve been told by two extremely senior, reliable sources.

Pollard made the point that Alistair Burt, a joint Foreign Office/DfID minister, was in Israel in the summer at the same time Patel was there on holiday. He said that Burt had an official meeting with someone from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s, office and that at that meeting Burt was told Netanyahu had met Patel hours before. “So the idea that they didn’t know about the meeting, that no one knew about this meeting, is simply nonsense,” he said.

Stephen Pollard.
Stephen Pollard. Photograph: Sky News

Theresa May is often compared to Gordon Brown (in a way that is not intended to reflect well on either of them), but Damian McBride, Brown’s communications chief, reckons the Brown operation was better at crisis management. He has tweeted this:

According to Guido Fawkes, 22,000 people have been tracking Priti Patel’s flight on Flight Radar. She is currently over Bosnia.

Rupert Harrison, who used to be George Osborne’s chief of staff, is so taken with the Priti Patel story that he’s turned to poetry.

Kate Osamor, the shadow international development secretary, has expanded on her call for Priti Patel to be sacked. She told the Guardian:

Priti Patel’s actions have badly damaged the world-class work that the department for international development does to help the world’s poorest, and they are eroding trust in Britain and beyond in the principles that drive the department.

Under Priti Patel’s tenure, aid has been increasingly repurposed for opaque diplomacy or security objectives, and the spirit of the UK’s pledge to spend 0.7% of national income regularly undermined through the back door whenever possible.

Looking ahead, whoever ends up being in charge must empower DfID as an independent department and restore the integrity of British international development policy. Labour stands ready to do that.

Kate Osamor.
Kate Osamor. Photograph: Courtesy of The Labour Party

No 10 says Jewish Chronicle wrong to say May knew more about Patel's Israel meetings than she's admitted

Downing Street is rejecting the claims in Stephen Pollard’s Jewish Chronicle article that have generated huge interest this morning. (See 10.39am and 11am.) A Number 10 spokesman said:

There are two allegations in the Jewish Chronicle. Both are categorically untrue.

It is not the case that anyone from Number 10 asked anyone from DfID to remove a meeting from the list that was published this week.

And it is not the case that the prime minister knew about Priti Patel’s meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu before last Friday.

The Number 10 denial does not explicitly cover one further claim in the Pollard article, which is that May and Patel discussed some weeks ago “Patel’s plan for UK aid to be shared with the Israelis”. But Pollard refers to a plan for the UK and Israel to cooperate over aid for Africa - which would be different from the controversial plan to channel aid for Syria refugees through the Israeli army.

A Number 10 source dismissed this aspect of the Jewish Chronicle story too, saying the whole report was “complete bollocks”. He said Number 10 did not know about the Patel proposal to divert aid money to the Israeli defences forces until this week. He also complained that the Jewish Chronicle had not even put its allegations to Downing Street before publishing them.

Labour calls for Priti Patel to be sacked

Kate Osamor, Priti Patel’s Labour shadow, says the international development secretary should be sacked.

Former Tory minister Anna Soubry and former shadow international development secretary Mary Creagh are both speculating that Priti Patel has already been sacked.

Speaking on BBC Five Live Creagh said:

I think she already has been (sacked) and I think what we are seeing is the prime minister perhaps giving her the dignity of landing on British soil and being able to offer her resignation. But there is no other reason for her cut short her trip in this way. All my political instincts tell me that she is toast.

Mary Creagh.
Mary Creagh. Photograph: Lauren Hurley/PA

Soubry agreed. She said:

I’m with Mary. I think Mary’s instincts are usually good and on this one I’m sure she is right.

Soubry also called for May to conduct a “thorough reshuffle to assert her authority”. As well as saying Boris Johnson should be sacked (see 11.40am), she said:

[May has] just got to grip it and assert her authority, have a top to bottom reshuffle. Bring in some of these brilliant new 2015ers. Bring back some people from the back benches, promote women. Put some old hands who have really proved to be safe pairs of hands, like Alistair Burt, and get on with the job. People are fed up with all of this, they want a government that delivers competence.

Anna Soubry.
Anna Soubry. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

Turning from a moment from one beleaguered cabinet minister to another, the Conservative MP Anna Soubry has told Radio 5 Live that Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, should be sacked.

Here are the Ladbrokes odds on who might replace Priti Patel.

ITV’s Robert Peston thinks the Jewish Chronicle claims about Downing Street knowing more about Priti Patel’s Israel freelancing than it has admitted (see 10.39am and 11am) are “sensational”.

This is from my colleague Rafael Behr.

In the blog we have been referring to Yuval Rotem, whom Priti Patel met in New York in September, simply as “an Israeli foreign ministry official”. A reader has been in touch to point out that this rather understates his importance. He is director general at the ministry, the equivalent of permanent secretary, which means he’s the official in charge.

The Israeli defence forces field hospital that Priti Patel reportedly visited in the summer (see 9.58am) 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 jihadi groups fighting the Assad regime.

Complicating Patel’s depiction of her visit to Israel in the summer as a private one was a reply given to a Guardian inquiry regarding her visit to the Golan Heights by an Israeli military spokesman, who strongly suggested Patel’s trip had been organised by the country’s ministry of foreign affairs.

In a text message to the Guardian, Major Jonathan Conricus, asked whether the Israeli military had facilitated the visit, declined to answer. But he added:

She visited Israel. Please refer to the MFA [ministry of foreign affairs] for details, since they organised the visit.

The 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.

Asked if Patel should be sacked he said:

We are very much focused on talking about military matters here and that is what I’m going to be doing all day.

Asked if he advised May to sack Michael Fallon, he said:

The prime minister makes her own decision on who is serving in her cabinet, and they are only the prime minister’s decisions. She makes her own decisions and she always does make her own decisions.

Sir Craig Oliver, head of communications at Number 10 for David Cameron, thinks the Jewish Chronicle claims (see 10.39am), are very significant.

And Marcus Dysch, the Jewish Chronicle’s political editor, thinks his boss’s scoop raises a question about Theresa May’s future.

But Pollard is just saying that Number 10 knew at the start of this week about Priti Patel’s meeting Yuval Rotem, an Israeli foreign ministry official, in New York in September. Pollard is not saying that Downing Street knew about the other “new” meeting disclosed overnight, her meeting with Gilad Erdan, the Israeli minister for public security, in the Commons in September. As Robert Peston (see 8.54am) and Peter Beaumont (see 9.32am) argue, this meeting is the more significant one.

But Number 10 may be on shakier ground if Pollard is right when he says that Patel had discussed her August meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, and her plan to divert aid spending through Israel, with Theresa May some weeks ago. PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield and BuzzFeed’s Emily Ashton explain why.

Stephen Pollard, the Jewish Chronicle editor, says that Priti Patel did tell Number 10 about her meeting with Yuval Rotem, the Israeli foreign ministry official, in New York in September. But the meeting was not included in the list of her meetings with Israeli ministers and officials published on Monday “as it would embarrass the Foreign and Commonwealth Office”, Pollard writes.

DfID, the department for international development, aren’t commenting yet on the Haaretz story about Priti Patel visiting the Golan Heights while she was in Israel in the summer. (See 9.58am.) They will be saying something later, I’m told.

Here is Sir Christopher Meyer, a former ambassador to Washington, on Priti Patel.

Patel visited Israeli military hospital in Golan Heights, says Israeli media

The Israeli news organisation Haaretz reports today that when Priti Patel was in Israel, she visited an Israeli military field hospital in the Golan Heights. This was not included in the information she disclosed about her trip on Monday.

Haaretz says in its story:

Britain’s international development secretary Priti Patel is at the center of a political scandal that has emerged in recent days with information about a series of meetings she had with senior Israeli officials, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without notifying the British embassy in advance. The criticism is set to increase Wednesday as Haaretz found that Patel visited an Israeli military field hospital set up by in the Golan Heights to treat Syrian refugees and victims of the civil war ...

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

The diplomatic protocol is that British ministers and senior officials do not travel in the Golan, as well as the West Bank and East Jerusalem, under the auspices of the Israeli government. Patel’s visit to the Israel defense forces field hospital in the Golan Heights as a guest of the Israeli government during her visit is a clear breach of protocol. Upon her return to London, Patel suggested that Britain help fund the field hospital’s operations.

Israeli tanks in the Golan Heights.
Israeli tanks in the Golan Heights. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

Updated

Bernard Jenkin, the Conservative MP and, like Priti Patel, a prominent Vote Leave supporter, told the Today programme this morning that Patel had made “a genuine mistake”. He said:

I’m quite certain that Priti made a genuine, genuine mistake.

We need to recognise that a lot of ministers are not experienced in high office when they take on these roles and they need a lot of support. I see this as an accident, I don’t see this is as malign or malicious, though a very serious breach of the protocols, no doubt about that.

Of all the meetings that Priti Patel held with Israeli ministers and officials, the meetings with Gilad Erdan, Israel’s public security and strategic affairs minister, are the most unusual and potentially damaging. She met him on her visit to Israel in August, and again in September in London. (See 7.27am.)

Erdan, an ambitious and abrasive member of Netanyahu’s own right wing Likud party, is better known for working against the kind of human rights advocates familiar to DfID staffers from their work.

In his strategic affairs role Erdan in particular has displayed McCarthyite tendencies, expressing at one stage his desire to set up a database of Israeli citizens who are involved in promoting and supporting boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movements against Israel or the settlements – a proposal that was opposed by the country’s attorney general Avichai Mendelblit who said he had no legal authority to collect data on the political views of Israelis.

A similar scheme targeting foreign nationals for intelligence gathering has been used to deny people entry to Israel.

In 2015 Erdan’s ministry was given powers including those to “guide, coordinate and integrate the activities of all the ministers and the government and of civil entities in Israel and abroad on the subject of the struggle against attempts to delegitimize Israel and the boycott movement”.

Among those who have fallen foul of Erdan’s ministry have been Isabel Phiri of Malawi, a senior official in the World Council of Churches who was detained arriving at Ben Gurion airport and deported.

Earlier this month Raed Jarrar, advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International – some of whose international projects are supported by DfID - was prevented from crossing from Jordan into the West Bank. A spokeswoman for Israel’s interior ministry said Erdan had recommended he be denied entry.

Gilad Erdan, the Israeli public security minister.
Gilad Erdan, the Israeli public security minister.
 Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

The foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, today landed in Washington for two days of talks with senior Congressmen designed to shore up American political support for the Iran nuclear deal saying the deal had made the world a safer place.

His chief message to key figures such as Paul Ryan, the republican House leader, will be US and the UK together must together condemn, and possibly act against the wider destabilising behaviour of Iran across the Middle East, but that does not require abandoning the Iran nuclear deal.

US President Donald Trump refused to recertify the deal, handing responsibility to congress, and congress now has a month to decide how to respond, including whether to impose fresh sanctions.

Ahead of the round of meetings, Johnson said:

Supporting the nuclear deal does not mean we should not call out and take action against disruptive Iranian behaviour elsewhere, including its ballistic missile programme and the unjustified detention of British dual-nationals. However, it is vital that we do not conflate the issues on which we should rightly condemn Iran and a deal which is neutralising the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

It took thirteen years of tireless diplomacy between the UK, US, our European partners and Iran to make the world a safer place. Now is not the moment to put that at risk but rather it is time for the US and UK to draw on the strength of our relationship and to focus on addressing Iran’s destabilising activity in the region.

Updated

Tory MP claims campaign against Patel part of plot to reverse Brexit

Priti Patel might be in a marginally stronger position if Tory MPs were coming out to defend her. But generally they are not. When Alistair Burt, her deputy, was in the Commons answering an urgent question about her conduct yesterday, none of the Conservative backbenchers who stood up to ask a question gave her their full backing.

But on Newsnight last night on Tory did speak up for her. Nadhim Zahawi, a member of the foreign affairs committee and, like Patel, an enthusiastic Brexiter, said the campaign against her was all a plot go up by remoaners. He told the programme:

Israel is one of our closest partners. This is not an enemy state that she somehow was having clandestine meetings with. The Foreign Office knew during the trip that she was having these meetings. Yes, the ambassador should have been there. She’s already admitted the mistake of not following procedure and apologised for it.

I somehow feel that some of this stuff is being drummed up because both Priti and the foreign secretary are big beasts in the Brexit campaign and some Labour remoaners and others think, if we take out some of these beasts and derail the government, then maybe we can actually do a U-turn on Brexit.

Nadhim Zahawi.
Nadhim Zahawi. Photograph: David M. Benett/Getty Images for Bell Pottinger

Speculation about who might replace Priti Patel as international development secretary has already started. Sky’s Adam Boulton has two very credible candidates.

And here is the Labour MP Chris Byrant, a former Foreign Office minister, on the Priti Patel affair.

Here is Douglas Carswell, the former Ukip MP, on the Priti Patel affair.

In a post on his Facebook page, ITV’s political editor Robert Peston says Priti Patel is “set to be sacked” and he has fresh information about her September meeting with Gilad Erdan, Israel’s public security meeting, which helps to explain why. Peston says:

The meeting which looks to have done for her was with Israel’s public security minister Gilad Erdan on September 7.

What is most shocking about this meeting is that it had been declined on her behalf by her department officials. But unbeknownst to them, it was then fixed up by her constituency office.

None of her officials attended it. The meeting was not minuted or recorded. The only other Briton present was the businessman and honorary presidential of Conservative Friends of Israel, Lord Polak.

If this had been isolated freelancing with a foreign government by Patel she might keep her job.

It wasn’t and she won’t.

Alex Wickham, who works for the Guido Fawkes website, has posted a link to the flightradar website website showing tracking the plane that he thinks Priti Patel is on as she flies back to London.

Priti Patel flying back to UK after being summoned by Theresa May

Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow and I’m taking over from Claire.

The Press Association has just snapped this.

International development secretary Priti Patel is flying back to Britain from Africa at the request of Theresa May, Whitehall sources said.

The Telegraph’s economics correspondent Anna Isaac, who is travelling on the Uganda trip with Liam Fox and (at least in theory) Priti Patel, says the international development secretary did not board the plane this morning from Nairobi to Entebbe as planned.

It’s not clear whether Theresa May has spoken to Patel since the further revelations last night of two more undisclosed meetings – after the international development secretary had been hauled in front of the prime minister to account for her earlier omissions.

It’s also still not yet clear precisely where Patel is. She was due to be in Uganda with international trade secretary Liam Fox. But now it seems likely that she did not make it to Entebbe as planned, and might even be on her way back to London already.

Labour peer Charles Falconer has told the Today programme that Patel must “definitely” be sacked – and that the fact Israel is an ally makes no difference:

She should not be colluding with a foreign government … It means she’s not part of a collective government trying to do the best for Britain … It’s appalling.

Tory MP Crispin Blunt, on the same programme, unsurprisingly trod more cautiously, saying:

It’s a matter for the prime minister.

Blunt said the meetings could be put down to “naivety or inexperience … or in her own explanation, enthusiasm. The obvious flaw in that position should have been known to her.”

Updated

Sky News is now reporting – which I can’t yet confirm – that Patel is on her way back to London.

Nairobi to London is an eight-and-a-half-hour flight time. That’s quite a long spell to have your phone on airplane mode …

Did Priti Patel even make it to Uganda? The Telegraph’s Christopher Hope reports not, saying she stayed overnight in Nairobi, Kenya – and could be heading back to London already.

This hasn’t been confirmed.

While Priti Patel currently occupies the “most likely to leave the cabinet today” position, Boris Johnson’s behaviour also remains under the spotlight.

The foreign secretary yesterday continued to insist that his words had been misunderstood when he told the foreign affairs select committee last week that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe – a British-Iranian woman serving a five-year jail sentence in Iran – was “simply teaching people journalism, as I understand it”.

The Iranian judiciary has used those words to pursue further charges against Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Her husband, Richard Ratcliffe, now says she wants to meet Johnson, who has so far not met her or her family.

As my colleague Jessica Elgot points out, one of Patel’s newly disclosed unsanctioned meetings – on 7 September, with Gilad Erdan, the Israeli public security minister – was tweeted out by Erdan himself on that date:

The problem for Patel, of course, is that this meeting – one of 14, it now turns out, with Israeli officials – did not follow protocol and fellow ministers were not notified.

Updated

The admission by the Department for International Development (DfID) on Tuesday night about the September meetings further undermined Patel’s earlier insistence that she had come clean about all her unofficial business with Israeli officials:

On 7 September, she met Gilad Erdan, the minister for public security, and was photographed with him on the House of Commons terrace.

On 18 September, while in New York, Patel met Yuval Rotem, an official from the Israeli foreign ministry.

Neither meeting was set up or reported in a way which accorded with proper procedures, sources said.

Patel had already faced censure from Downing Street on Tuesday night, after it 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.

She was also rebuked by No 10 after giving the false impression in an interview with the Guardian that foreign secretary Boris Johnson and the Foreign Office knew about the meetings.

At 13 out of a total of 14 meetings with Israeli officials over August and September, she was accompanied by Lord Polak, a lobbyist and a leading member of Conservative Friends of Israel.

No 10 on Tuesday said Patel had not informed the prime minister about the “aid to Israel” discussions at a crunch meeting on Monday which was supposed to draw a line under the row.

Instead, May learned about the proposals from reports in the media, a Downing Street source said.

Read our full report here:

The BBC’s Norman Smith reports that Patel’s scheduled events for this morning – she’s currently on a trip to Uganda with international trade secretary Liam Fox – have been cancelled:

Updated

An early start for the politics live blog today, which for under-pressure Priti Patel – according to some reports – could be her last as a member of this cabinet.

Patel, the international development secretary, is in Uganda with international trade secretary Liam Fox. But attention is instead on Israel, where Patel held 12 undisclosed meetings with senior officials – including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu – during an unusually busy family holiday to the country in Israel.

Late on Tuesday night, it emerged that Patel had two further meetings in September without notifying fellow ministers. And in 13 of those 14 meetings, she was accompanied by Lord Polak, a lobbyist and a leading member of Conservative Friends of Israel – something the Times reported would be a further breach of the ministerial code.

Amid reports this morning that Patel’s timetabled events in Uganda have been cancelled, the political Twitter consensus is that Patel is now breakfast toast:

However:

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