Former British Indian home secretary Priti Patel has been chosen by the newly elected Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch as her shadow foreign secretary to join her top team on the Opposition benches in the House of Commons on Tuesday.

Gujarati-origin Patel, 52, was one of the early contenders who went head-to-head in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory chief and Leader of the Opposition.

With two other opponents in the election, Robert Jenrick and Mel Stride appointed shadow justice secretary and shadow chancellor respectively, Badenoch’s picks for her frontbench is being seen as an attempt to unite a divided Conservative Party.

“Congratulations to Kemi Badenoch on her election as leader of our great Party,” posted Patel on X over the weekend after the election result was declared.

“Let's all unite behind her to renew and earn back the trust of the British people. I look forward to supporting her in holding this dishonest and self-serving Labour government to account and in putting forward a Conservative vision for the future of our great county,” she said.

Patel, who was conferred a Damehood in former prime minister Boris Johnson’s resignation honours, has been on the Tory backbenches since his exit from 10 Downing Street in 2022.

She will be taking on Labour’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy as her opposite number in parliamentary face-offs.

Badenoch, meanwhile, is finalising her shadow cabinet starting with Laura Trott as shadow education secretary to respond to the government’s announcement of a rise in university tuition fees from – up GBP 285 from the frozen maximum of GBP 9,250 to hit GBP 9.535 a year.

International student fees are not as yet impacted by this change, as Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told MPs on Monday the government was having to “take the tough decisions needed to put universities on a firmer financial footing.” In her first response as the new shadow minister, Trott called the tuition fee rise “a hike in the effective tax graduates have to pay.” With the Tories down to just 121 members of Parliament, Badenoch will have to hand multiple shadow briefs to some of her picks as many senior Tories have declined frontbench jobs as she prepares to chair her first shadow cabinet meeting as Opposition leader.

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