Dominic Rennie Raab is a British Conservative Party politician who has been Member of Parliament for Esher and Walton since 2010. From 2019 to 2023, with a brief period out of office during the Truss premiership, Raab was deputy to prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak - as First Secretary of State until 2021 then as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom until 2023. Additionally he has served in the cabinet positions of Brexit Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor.
Born in Buckinghamshire, Raab attended Dr Challoner's Grammar School. He studied law at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and then went on to study for a master's degree at Jesus College, Cambridge. He began his career as a solicitor at Linklaters, before working at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as a political aide. He was elected for Esher and Walton at the 2010 general election. As a backbencher, Raab co-wrote a number of papers and books, including After the Coalition and Britannia Unchained . He served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice in the second government of David Cameron from 2015 to 2016. Following Theresa May's appointment as Prime Minister, Raab returned to the backbenches but was appointed to the second May government as Minister of State for Courts and Justice following the 2017 general election. In the 2018 cabinet reshuffle, he was moved to the post of Minister of State for Housing and Planning.
In 2018, Raab was promoted to Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union following the resignation of David Davis. Two weeks later, May announced that she would take control of negotiations with the European Union, with Raab deputising for her and taking charge of domestic preparations for Brexit. Four months later, Raab resigned as Brexit Secretary in opposition to May's draft Brexit withdrawal agreement.
Following May's resignation in 2019, Raab ran to succeed her in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election; he was eliminated in the second ballot of Conservative MPs. Following Boris Johnson's appointment as Prime Minister, Raab was appointed First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In 2020, when the Department for International Development was merged with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Raab's post was retitled Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. In the 2021 cabinet reshuffle, he was moved to the posts of Deputy Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. Following a stint on the backbenches during the premiership of Liz Truss, he was re-appointed to the posts in Rishi Sunak's ministry. He resigned from Sunak's government in April 2023 after an investigation upheld some complaints that he had bullied civil servants. Raab was critical of the investigation's findings and said that the threshold for bullying had been set too low. A month after his resignation he announced that he would be standing down as an MP at the next general election.
Wikipedia
“Misogyny is absolutely wrong whether it's a man against a woman or a woman against a man.”
Interviewed on the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58814271 (6 October 2021)
2020s, 2021
During an election debate hosted by the BBC https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/29/tory-mp-dominic-raab-jeered-over-food-bank-comments (29 May 2017)
2010s, 2017
“The police don't normally look back and investigate things that have taken place a year ago.”
2020s, 2021
Source: Interviewed on the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-59532832, talking about enquiries into alleged Downing Street parties during COVID restrictions (5 December 2021)
