Priti Patel has announced she is standing down as Home Secretary and returning to the backbenches ahead of an expected reshuffle tomorrow. Patel had made her pitch during the leadership campaign to stay in government, saying ‘my record in that time speaks volumes’. But it had become very clear in briefings about Liz Truss’s planned reshuffle that the new Prime Minister didn’t agree, with Suella Braverman expected to take over at the Home Office. Patel is leaving on her own terms. In her resignation letter to Boris Johnson, she writes:

It has been the honour of my life to serve our country as Home Secretary for the last three years and to deliver on our commitments to back and reform our policy, stand up for the hard-working law-abiding majority, reform our immigration and asylum system, and fight terrorism. Your support over this period has delivered an unparalleled package of reforms and investment…
I congratulate Liz Truss on being elected our new leader, and will give her my support as our new Prime Minister. It is my choice to continue my public service to the country and the Witham constituency from the backbenches, once Liz formally assumes office and a new Home Secretary is appointed. From the backbenches, I will champion many of the policies and causes I have stood up for both inside and outside of government.

The changing of the guard at the Home Office doesn’t mean a change in flagship policies, though: Truss was very supportive of the Rwanda deportation policy, naming it as one of her priorities. She will come under pressure to cut crime as that matter grows in salience again. Her new Home Secretary will find that the problem with the deportation policy – and indeed the attempts to stem the number of migrants crossing the Channel – is that so far nothing has really worked. Talking tough on it in a leadership contest is one thing, but Patel has been talking tough for months without much evidence of success. The Rwanda policy seems neither to be working in practice nor as a deterrent.

As for Patel, she has long been someone who doesn’t brief against colleagues or complains in public, priding herself on her party loyalty. She was one of Truss’s co-writers on Britannia Unchained, a manifesto for the right of the party during the Coalition years, and is more likely to talk in public about the importance of uniting behind the new leader than she is to complain about her frontbench career being brought to an end. The job of chief troublemaker on the backbenches won’t be hers: there are plenty of other big figures jostling for that.