He joined the consultancy Control Risks as Government and International Relations Adviser in July 2012 and became a non executive Director of HSBC Bank Middle East on 10 July 2012.[8] Justifying British support for, and arms sales to, serial human rights violators in the Middle East in November 2012—that is, even in the face of the Arab Spring—Patey said, "The people in the Gulf will say, 'you of all people should understand why evolutionary change is better than revolutionary change'," referring to European revolutions.[9]