Great friend of India, not squeamish about her beliefs: Swapan Dasgupta hails Priti Patel becoming Britain's Home Secy

Swapan Dasgupta, a journalist and Member of Parliament in Rajya Sabha, has praised Indian-origin British politician Priti Patel who has been appointed as Britain's Home Secretary after Boris Johnson took over as new Prime Minister. 

Delighted to hear of ⁦@patel4witham⁩ as British Home Secretary. She is a great friend of India and blessed with the right political instincts. Most imp, she is not squeamish about her beliefs.This photo was outside Downing St in 2015 before a ⁦@narendramodi⁩ visit pic.twitter.com/Dfv5goJE1j

— Swapan Dasgupta (@swapan55) July 25, 2019

Hailing Priti Patel's elevation as Britain's Home Secretary, Swapan Dasgupta took to Twitter and said, "Delighted to hear of ⁦@patel4witham as British Home Secretary. She is a great friend of India and blessed with the right political instincts. Most important, she is not squeamish about her beliefs." (Photo: Swapan Dasgupta Twitter)

Indian-origin British politician Priti Patel, an ardent Brexiteer who was among the most vocal critics of Theresa May's Brexit strategy, took charge as Britain's first Indian-origin home secretary as part of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's top team on Thursday.

Priti Patel was born in London on March 29, 1972 to Sushil and Anjana Patel, who were originally from Gujarat but later moved to Uganda.

However, following the expulsion of Ugandan Asians in 1960s by President Idi Amin, Priti's family migrated to the UK and settled in Hertfordshire. Her family ventured into a business of newsagents in London.  

Priti Patel attended Westfield Tech College and further went to study Economics at Keele University. She later pursued postgraduate studies in British Government and Politics at the University of Essex. 

During the times when John Major was Britain's PM, Priti Patel made her first move into politics by joining the Conservative Party as a teenager. 

Venturing into politics, she was offered a post to work for the new leader William Hague in his press office where she had to deal with media relations.

In 2005, she contested Nottingham North general election but couldn't register a victory. Patel was initially involved with the Referendum Party before switching allegiance to the Conservatives.  

Now after being appointed as Britain's Home Secretary, she has replaced Pakistani-origin Sajid Javid, who moves to the Treasury department as the first ethnic minority Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Patel had been a prominent member of the "Back Boris" campaign for the Conservative Party leadership and was widely tipped for the plum post in the prime minister's frontline team.

"It is important that the cabinet should represent modern Britain as well as a modern Conservative Party," she said, hours before her appointment was announced on Wednesday.

A long-standing Eurosceptic, Patel had steered the "Vote Leave" campaign in the lead-up to the June, 2016 referendum in favour of Britain's exit from the European Union (EU).

The 47-year-old British politician was first elected as a Conservative MP for Witham in Essex in 2010 and gained prominence in the then David Cameron-led Tory government as his Indian Diaspora Champion.

She went on to be appointed to junior ministerial posts, treasury minister in 2014 and then employment minister after the 2015 general election, before May promoted her to the position of secretary of state in the Department for International Development (DfID) in 2016, until she was forced to quit the post in 2017.

"With Boris Johnson leading the Conservative Party and as prime minister, the United Kingdom will have a leader who believes in Britain, will implement a new vision for the future of the country and a roadmap to move forward and thrive as a self-governing nation that re-establishes our ties with our friends and allies around the world such as India," Patel said after Johnson secured a landslide victory in the Tory leadership contest earlier this week.

The Gujarati-origin politician, who is a prominent guest at all major Indian diaspora events in the UK, is seen as an avid supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the UK.

As a member of the UK Parliament's influential Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC), she was part of the team that recently released its damning report warning that the UK was falling behind in the race to engage with India at the end of a lengthy Global Britain and India parliamentary inquiry.

"Our report calls for the government to look again at the relationship between the UK and India," Patel said, in reference to the "Building Bridges: Reawakening UK-India ties" report released last month to mark the first-ever India Day in the UK Parliament. (Photo: AFP)

Boris Johnson officially became Britain's new Prime Minister on Wednesday and promised to leave the European Union on October 31 "no ifs, no buts" under a "new deal" with the 28-member economic bloc.

The 55-year-old former foreign secretary and London Mayor laid out his vision as Prime Minister in his first speech on the steps of Downing Street after a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, during which the 93-year-old monarch formally invited him to form a government after accepting Theresa May's resignation a little earlier.

"We will restore trust in our democracy and we are going to fulfil the repeated promises of Parliament to the people and come out of the EU on October 31, no ifs or buts," Johnson said, adding that while he does have 99 days to that deadline, the country has had enough of waiting and the time to act on Brexit is right away.

"Brexit was a fundamental decision by the British people. We must now respect that decision and create a new partnership with our European friends The work begins immediately behind that black door and I take personal responsibility of the change I want to see. Never mind the backstop, the buck stops here," the prime minister said just before he went into that iconic black No. 10 door of Downing Street, the British PM's office.