Kenya Airways (KQ) flight 100 got huge attention on November 8, 2017
after thousands of internet users in the UK tracked it for hours as it
carried British International Development Secretary Ms Priti Patel who
is embroiled in a major scandal back home. FILE PHOTO | NATION MEDIA
GROUP
Kenya Airways (KQ) got unsolicited advertisement worth millions
of shillings after thousands of internet users in the UK tracked one of
its flights for hours.
The move came after it emerged
that British International Development Secretary Ms Priti Patel, who is
embroiled in a major scandal back home, was aboard the flight.
The arrival of flight number KQ 100 at Heathrow Airport was covered live on all major TV channels.
ORDERED BACK
Ms
Patel was ordered back from Africa by Prime Minister Theresa May
following controversy over her meetings with Israeli officials.
She left Nairobi aboard KQ 100 on Wednesday for the eight-hour flight.
More than 22,000 users tracked the flight on flightradar24.com.
TWITTER
And on Twitter, users tracked the development using the hashtag #HasPritiLandedYet.
TV
stations deployed helicopters and tracked her limo as it snaked through
the busy London streets to 10 Downing Street where she was set to meet
with Mrs May.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg
said "some kind of development" was expected on Wednesday and Ms Patel's
sacking seemed "almost inevitable now".
Ms Patel apologised on Monday to the PM about unauthorised meetings with Israeli politicians in August.
But there are now questions about further meetings held in September.
BBC
diplomatic correspondent James Landale said the international
development secretary had cut short her official trip to Uganda to fly
back to the UK.
She landed at 15:10 GMT.
REPRIMANDED
Ms
Patel was formally reprimanded in Downing Street on Monday, where she
was asked to give details about a dozen meetings she had with Israeli
officials while on holiday, which were not sanctioned by the Foreign
Office.
It has also now emerged that Ms Patel conducted two further meetings in September without government officials being present.
It is thought Lord Polak, honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel, was present at both meetings.
Ms Patel met Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan in Westminster on 7 September.
Mr Erdan later tweeted about their meeting.
On 18 September she met foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New York.
SYRIA REFUGEES
It
is not yet clear whether Ms Patel had informed the prime minister about
these meetings or of her plans to look into giving tax-payers' money to
the Israeli military to treat wounded Syrian refugees in the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights region - a request that was turned down
as "inappropriate" by officials.
In a further
development on Wednesday, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that in
August, she visited an Israeli military field hospital in the Golan
Heights - the UK, like other members of the international community, has
never recognised Israeli control of the area seized from Syria in the
1967 Six-Day War.
There was no immediate comment from the Department for International Development on the report.
Ms
Patel was forced to correct the record earlier this week about the
number of meetings that she had attended and when the Foreign Office had
been notified about them.
The MP said she had been wrong to suggest to the Guardian that Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson knew of the trip in advance when he had only learnt about it while it was under way.
CLOSED MATTER
In
the Commons on Tuesday, Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt - who was
in Israel on official business at the same time as Ms Patel's
unofficial visit in August – said that Downing Street regarded the
matter "as closed" after Ms Patel had been reprimanded by the prime
minister and reminded of her obligations under the ministerial code.
Ms
Patel, who has been an MP since 2010, is a long-standing supporter of
Israel and a former vice-chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel.
Former
Labour lord chancellor Lord Falconer told BBC Radio 4's Today: "She
should not be colluding with a foreign government – it doesn't matter if
it's an ally or not... to do it in that secretive way makes her look
like she's much more the emissary of the Israeli government than a
member of the British government."
QUIT
Former
Conservative international development minister Sir Desmond Swayne said
that even if Ms Patel was forced to quit, just a week after Defence
Secretary Sir Michael Fallon resigned for inappropriate behaviour, it
would not be a "catastrophe".
"There are 22 Cabinet ministers and there are plenty of people who are talented to step into their shoes," he told BBC's Victoria Derbyshire. "It will not be a huge destabilisation."
In
a letter to Mrs May, Labour's shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon
Trickett called on the prime minister to either call in her independent
adviser on ministerial standards to investigate, or "state publicly and
explain your full reasons for why Priti Patel retains your confidence".
However, Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi – a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee - told BBC
Two's Newsnight that he believed some of the criticism facing Ms Patel
was down to the fact she was a pro-Brexit campaigner during the EU
referendum.
He said Ms Patel was not having
"clandestine" meetings with "an enemy state" and that the Foreign Office
was made aware of the meetings while she was in Israel.
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