I’m no Boris ally, insists Raab the arch-plotter
DoMINIC Raab tried to improve his leadership credentials yesterday by distancing himself from Boris Johnson.
The former Brexit secretary, who resigned on Thursday, said he was ‘not an ally’ of Mr Johnson.
Mr Raab refused to be drawn on whether he would stand in a future battle, should Theresa May stand aside. But one former minister said at the weekend: ‘Dominic has shown leadership by resigning.
‘It’s probably down to him or Boris from our side of things.’
The former Cabinet minister told The Sunday Times that any potential Tory leadership contest would be ‘Raab’s to lose’.
But friends of David Davis, Mr Raab’s predecessor as Brexit Secretary, said he himself could still run and would not necessarily give way in favour of his replacement. Whoever stands for the Brexit wing of the party is likely to face either Sajid Javid or Jeremy Hunt.
Pressed on the BBC yesterday about his own demands for changes to the Brexit agreement, presenter Andrew Marr asked Mr Raab: ‘To quote your ally Boris Johnson, you’re trying to have your cake and eat it.’
The former minister replied: ‘With fairness, you say Boris Johnson is my ally – he is a friend and good colleague, but he’s not an ally.’
‘I would never in these circumstances send a letter into the 1922 Committee – don’t think that’s right. I also think all of this leadership stuff is a total distraction from the historic moment that we have, which is to get this deal over the line.’ Asked whether he would stand in any future contest, Mr Raab said: ‘I’m not even getting sucked into all of that.
‘I’m supportive of the prime minister, I’m not going to be supporting anyone that is sending in letters to the 1922 committee. In a vote of no confidence, I would support her.’
He resigned from the Cabinet because he could not sign ‘the country I love’ up to a Brexit deal that would leave Britain at the mercy of the EU, and believed there was still time to get a better deal.
He said: ‘I couldn’t, in good faith... sign this country, the country I love, up to that deal.
‘When you think about the longterm good of this country economically, democratically, when I look
my kids in the eye and I think what will this country be like in ten years, I didn’t feel able to sign up to this.
‘I do think we’re being bullied [by the EU]. I do think we’re being subject to what is pretty close to blackmail, frankly, and I do think there is a point at which, it probably should have been done before, where we just say ‘‘I’m sorry, this is the United Kingdom of Great Britain Northern Ireland, we cannot accept those dictator terms’’.’
Mr Raab said he would vote against the Brexit deal if it was put before the Commons in its current form, partly because it ‘absolutely’ threatens the Union. He said it was not worth the £39billion divorce payment agreed with the EU, but that the Government had got ‘very close to a deal that would be faithful to the referendum’.
If the Withdrawal Agreement was tweaked ‘I still think a deal could be done’, he added.