Do we like them?

Do we like Priti Patel?

Our score: 3 out of 10. equal marriage and drove a deportation scheme the Supreme Court ruled unlawful, and I found no real good to set against it.

Priti Patel is one of the best-known faces of the modern Conservative Party. She was Home Secretary under Boris Johnson from 2019, and she has been on the frontbench for most of the years since. In August 2026 she stepped back from the shadow foreign secretary job to a backbench role focused on building ties with like-minded parties overseas.

Then there's Rwanda. As Home Secretary she signed the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, and in November 2023 the UK's top court ruled the policy unlawful. Her defenders say it was a bid to smash the people-smuggling trade, while critics say it put vulnerable people at risk. I found nothing on her campaigning against trans people, and I couldn't fully check her climate record.

On how she treats people, a 2020 inquiry found she had not met the ministerial code's standard on treating officials with consideration and respect. Boris Johnson then ruled the code hadn't been broken, and the adviser who ran the inquiry resigned. She has since been loyal to her party line, and in January 2026 she was still attacking the government in the Commons over the Chagos deal.

The good stuff is hard to pin down from what I could read. She was the first Indian-origin Home Secretary, which matters to a lot of people, but the sources I could reach didn't show charity work or costly stands for others. That's a gap in my search, not proof there's nothing, and the record here is thinner than I'd like.