Kemi Badenoch's key NI appointments include NI shadow secretary promotion and Dame Priti Patel's front bench return
New Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s appointments to her shadow cabinet include arch Brexiteer Dame Priti Patel and a boosted role for shadow Northern Ireland secretary Alex Burghart.
Mr Burghart – who has yet to visit Northern Ireland – continues in his role as Hilary Benn’s opposite number – but will also take on the role shadowing the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.
That is the second most senior minister in the Cabinet Office, after the Prime Minister.
Recent questions he has asked in Parliament show that he has pushed the government on its implementation of the Safeguarding the Union document, which emerged from a deal between the DUP and the last government. He has also queried the government on issues including PSNI funding and the UK internal market.
Dame Priti Patel has been appointed shadow foreign secretary, in what should be a welcome move for unionist parties – all of whom oppose the Windsor Framework to varying degrees. She rebelled against her party to vote against the deal because it “posed a risk to the integrity of our United Kingdom”.
In an article for the Unionist Voice website last year, Dame Patel argued that the Northern Ireland Protocol was agreed to end years of “dither and delay”. She said it “was always a compromise that I and many others were deeply uncomfortable with, but it was always meant to be reviewed and changed”.
Whether she backs Jim Allister’s Protocol bill will be seen by unionists as a test of whether the Tory party has any real intention of removing the sea border. That may clash with a brief in which she will need good EU relations.