Toby on Tuesday

'Bordering On Disgraceful'

“I don’t see why my son should be denied a job with Goldman Sachs in London by a bunch of white trash in the North of England!”, she said looking at me with unfeigned contempt and not disguising who she had in mind.   She was the pro-Remain wife of a well-known pro-Remain High Court judge whom I recently met.   Remonstrating that the U.S. bank Goldman Sachs had threatened to relocate to Frankfurt in the event of Brexit, she explained that she had a son in Geneva who was hoping to return to London and a daughter working in New York.   All I could do was chuckle and reply that, when I last checked, Switzerland wasn’t in the EU and I didn’t think that America was either.   But it is a measure of the bile and fury of the embittered Remainers that we were having this conversation.   Now I was more than happy to be described as Northern white trash by the amiable High Court judge’s wife, but I thought that she could never have used that charming expression in connection with the splendid Priti Patel, one of the true stars of the Leave campaign.   And Priti Patel’s reward has come in being appointed Secretary of State for International Development in Theresa May’s new cabinet.

Born in 1972, when she was elected for Witham in Essex in 2010 Priti Patel was the first Hindu woman Member of Parliament.   Her parents were Gujarati Ugandan immigrants who left their country just before Idi Amin announced the expulsion of Ugandan Asians.   In the best tradition, they built up a chain of newsagents in the South-East of England and will have been thrilled to see their gifted daughter embark on a career in public life.  From 1995 to 1997 she ran the Referendum Party’s press office before moving to William Hague’s own press office.   Then from 2003 to 2007 she found herself working for Diageo, the British multinational alcoholic beverages company where she helped shape “a global strategy on responsible drinking”, something to endear her to all UKIP members.   Her political views too were entirely consistent with UKIP’s and it was not surprising when towards the end of last year she joined the Vote Leave Campaign Committee.   By then, just 5 years after becoming an MP, she was already Minister of State for Employment in the Department for Work and Pensions and a Privy Councillor.   And one campaign for which she became celebrated was for the scrapping of the Department for International Development, largely on account of the sheer volume of overseas aid that disappears in fraud and outright theft.   By appointing her to head that Department, it is hoped that the incidence of corruption can begin to diminish.

Now Britain is unique in the world in being the only country to spend 0.7% of our Gross Domestic Product on Overseas Aid, in addition to our broadly equivalent net transfers to the European Union.   This is happening at a time when the risk of terrorist activity, and particularly EU-related terrorist activity, is growing by the day.   Yet our border controls remain an unqualified disgrace.  By way of example, Italy has 4,772 miles of coastline and some 600 border patrol vessels.  Britain has 7,700 miles of coastline and just 3 border patrol vessels, up from 2 in 2009.   America’s border control force is the same size as her navy.   Small British harbours and isolated beaches in particular are being targeted by people smugglers and illegal migrants.   Small airfields go unpatrolled and the promised checks are not yet in place.   Illegal immigrants are simply arriving in vehicles belonging to people smugglers.   All this is well known, as is the way in which the UK Border Agency is being overwhelmed by the pressures it faces.  Now this is not UKIP policy but, with a sympathetic Secretary of State in place, there does seem to be a strong case to divert a large part of our International Development budget to countering the threat of terrorism both around the world and at our borders.   At the moment, there is little public support for a policy which, like the EU budget, is so susceptible to fraud.   But if it were used as a resource to fight terrorism both overseas and within the UK, not least at our borders, then that public support could return.   And the excellent Priti Patel, who fought so bravely in the Leave campaign and who indeed campaigned to abolish the Department she now heads, would have earned the thanks not just of UKIP but of our whole country.   And not even that charming pro-Remain wife of the pro-Remain High Court judge, so desperate for her son to work in Goldman Sachs, could accuse her of just being Northern white trash!

Until next Tuesday!

Toby