Priti Patel vows radical rewrite of UK immigration system to fight terrorism

Britain’s new Home Secretary has promised to push through the prime minister’s “radical rewrite of our immigration system” to keep out terrorists.

“We want to unequivocally make Britain the greatest country on Earth,” wrote Priti Patel in an article published over the weekend by the Mail on Sunday.

This latest article confirms she will continue to take worrying positions on key human rights issues in the UK.

Under this new vision Patel vows to prioritise immigrants who add “significant value” to the UK “based on what people can offer rather than on where they come from.”

Under Patel’s “shake-up” skilled workers must have a job offer from a Home Office-registered company and speak English.

Patel’s appointment as Home Secretary by the new Prime Minister Boris Johnson provoked a wave of criticism last week as Patel was forced to resign as international development secretary after holding unofficial meetings with Israeli officials.

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Patel asked officials in her department to look into whether British aid money could be funneled into a field hospital in the occupied Golan Heights run by the Israeli army.

She is the daughter of immigrants yet voted against banning the detention of pregnant women in immigration jails.

Patel has not clarified her position on asylum seekers, which in 2018 made up five per cent of immigrants.

Iran, Iraq and Eritrea were the top nationalities seeking asylum in the UK last year.

Under the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme the UK pledged to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees; by the end of 2017 10,538 had arrived through this scheme.

Last week 100 faith leaders wrote to the prime minister asking his government to accept at least 10,000 refugees a year after Johnson previously announced the UK would admit up to 5,000 in 2020-2021.