Priti Patel has decided to enter the Conservative leadership race to succeed Rishi Sunak, sources have told the Guardian.
The former home secretary, who retained her seat of Witham in Essex earlier this month with a reduced majority of 5,145, has formed a campaign team funded by Tory donors who include former advisers and Conservative campaign headquarters staff.
She is expected to announce her intention to enter the race by the end of next week. It will be the first time that the 53-year-old has made a run for the leadership, and she is expected to be competing against the former business secretary Kemi Badenoch and the former security minister Tom Tugendhat, among others.
A source close to Patel told the Daily Telegraph, which first reported the story: “Priti has kept a low profile and done her best to support others, she feels colleagues also need time to digest the general election result and don’t want posturing in the media from prospective candidates.
“She has quietly put a team together, as many colleagues from different sides of the party have over the past week urged her to run and she now has key MP supporters and campaign staff in place including some high profile Conservative donors.”
Candidates need to secure the backing of enough MPs to make it into the final two before members have a chance to vote for them. A timeline has yet to be set for the leadership contest. The rules will be set by the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs, which last week appointed Bob Blackman as its new chair.
Patel has been an MP since 2010 and served as international development secretary under Theresa May and home secretary under Boris Johnson.
In 2020, Johnson’s adviser on standards, Sir Alex Allan, ruled Patel had “unintentionally” broken the ministerial code and had not consistently met the high standards required by the ministerial code of treating her civil servants with consideration and respect, and cited examples of “shouting and swearing”.
“Her approach on occasions has amounted to behaviour that can be described as bullying in terms of the impact felt by individuals,” the report said.
Johnson rejected his adviser’s findings, insisting he had “full confidence” in his home secretary and Allan subsequently resigned from his role. Patel gave a “fulsome apology” but argued she had not been “supported” at the time that the claims were made by the Home Office.
In 2021, the union for senior civil servants, the FDA, lost its high court challenge to Johnson’s decision to back Patel over the allegations.
