Priti Sushil Patel is a British politician who has been serving as Home Secretary of the United Kingdom since 2019. She was elected as the first Member of Parliament for the newly created Witham constituency in May 2010 and was subsequently re-elected in May 2015, June 2017, and December 2019.
Priti was born in London on March 29, 1972, to an Indian family. Her paternal grandparents were from Gujrat, India. They went to Uganda and established a shop in Kampala. In 1960 her parents migrated to the UK.
She was educated at a comprehensive girl's school in Watford and went on to study economics at Keele University before completing her postgraduate studies at the University of Essex.
Patel has been married to Alex Sawyer since 2004. Sawyer is a marketing consultant for the NASDAQ stock exchange. He is also a Conservative councilor and Cabinet Member for Communities on the council of the London Borough of Bexley. Together, they have a son who was born in August 2008.
She was involved with the Referendum Party before switching allegiance to the Conservatives and was inspired to get involved in politics by the Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
After graduation, Priti worked as an intern at a Conservative Central Office. In 1997, she joined the Conservative Party and started working at a press office for William Hague. She is a grassroots campaigner and prides herself as a longstanding Conservative Party activist and volunteer for over 30 years. She has also supported the Party in several roles, including as an Association Chairman, an elected member of the Conservative Party Board, and as a member of the 1922 Committee.
From 2003 to 2007, Priti worked for the British multinational alcoholic beverage company, Diago. Later, she joined the Weber Shandwick as the Director of Corporate and Public Affairs practice. She worked in the corporate world for more than ten years.
In 2005, she appeared as a candidate for the Conservative Party and participated in the 2005 general election for Nottingham North. Despite her unsuccessful performance in the election, new party leader David Cameron offered a place on the "A-List" of conservative prospective parliamentary candidates (PPC).
In 2006, Priti became a PPC for a new constituency called "Witham" in central Essex. She received the majority vote in the election and assumed office on May 6 as a member of parliament for Witham. In 2015, she won a general election and retained her seat as MP with 27,123 votes.
She also held roles in government as Minister of State for Employment, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, and the first UK-India Diaspora Champion. Priti has also previously served as Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Small Shops, Co-Chair of the APPG for Victims and Witnesses of Crime, and Vice-Chair of the Indo-British APPG. In November 2013, the Prime Minister appointed Priti as the first-ever UK Indian Diaspora Champion.
Priti served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for International Development between July 2016 and November 2017. In that role, she transformed the delivery of overseas assistance programs to focus on aid effectiveness, economic development, trade, and jobs so that countries can stand on their own two feet.
Priti also pioneered new levels of accountability and openness in using the aid budget, with reforms and spending controls across the aid sector.
In 2019, she was appointed as the Home Secretary in the new cabinet of Prime Minister Boris Johnson. She became the headline when she developed a new points-based immigration system which has been in effect since January 1, 2021.
Priti believes in Hinduism and celebrates every Hindu festival such as Diwali, Vaishakhi, and many others.
In 2015, she was honored with the "Jewels of Gujarat" award in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Priti is a big fan of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan and cricketer Virat Kohli. She is a very popular British politician on social media.
