PRITI Patel is almost certain to be sacked after being ordered back to London following revelations that she had secret meetings with Israeli politicians.
International Development Secretary Priti Patel entered Downing Street to face Prime Minister Theresa May and explain herself amid the growing scandal.
Ms Patel has been forced to cut short her official visit to Africa and it is thought that she could be sacked on her arrival back in Westminster.
She has already apologised to the Prime Minister on Monday after failing to disclose a series of 12 meetings with senior Israeli figures during a family holiday in the country in August.
It has since emerged that she then held two additional meetings, one in the UK and one in the US, following her return from vacation.
In a further development, there are reports that during her stay she visited an Israeli military field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights.
BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg, reported that a source lose to the Development Secretary claims she will hand in her resignation, rather than be sacked.
She tweeted: “Someone close to Patel tells me she’ll resign rather than be sacked.”
Meanwhile Tory MP James Duddridge defended his colleague on the BBC, saying that the Development Secretary will only receive a reprimand from the MP over the meetings, because her conduct is "not a sackable offence”.
Bernard Jenkin, Conservative MP for for Harwich and North Essex, also stepped in to say that Ms Patel’s mistake was an “accident”.
As Ms Patel returns for her moment of reckoning, here is a look at her background and why she could be about to be sacked.
Who is Priti Patel? The Conservative MP was appointed to Mrs May’s Cabinet in the wake of the EU referendum. She was a key figure in the Brexit campaign.
The prominent Brexiteer was employment minister before taking on the role of Secretary of State for International Development in July 2016.
Ms Patel quickly established herself as a rising star of the Conservative Party after she was elected as MP for Witham in Essex in 2010.
The 45-year-old studied at Keele and Essex universities and began work in Conservative Central Office in 1997. She worked in consultancy before becoming MP.
Why is Priti Patel about to get sacked? Ms Patel’s return to the UK follows the disclosure that she met Israeli public security minister Gilad Erdan in Parliament on September 7, and foreign ministry official Yuval Rotem in New York on September 18.
It is understood that Downing Street was told about the New York breakfast with Mr Rotem when Ms Patel revealed the details of her trip to Israel, but No 10 only learnt on Tuesday about the meeting with Mr Erdan.
No British officials were present and, like her meetings in Israel, she did not report them to the Foreign Office or Government in the usual way.
She was accompanied at all the meetings bar one in Israel by the honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel lobbying group, Lord Polak.
The Israeli Haaretz newspaper reported that during her stay in the country she visited an Israeli military field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights.
Britain, like other members of the international community, has never recognised Israeli control of the heights which were seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War.