Raab lost his vote – but has won our attention

ANY backbench MP leading a rebellion must aim for a tricky balance. Open rudeness to his ministerial bench, no matter how deserved (e.g. ‘The Secretary of State is and long has been a jellyfish’), is to be avoided. It will only make Downing Street vindictive and it may deter wavering loyalists.

Nor must the rebel leader appear too pleased with himself (e.g. ‘Having long been known for my concern on this subject, I feel it only right to offer the House my expert advice’). Your party colleagues, otherwise known as your enemies, will start making gagging noises if you try such a tack.

A tone of reluctant despair, nobility cloaked by a baffled modesty, is the thing to aim for.

And yet it must be neither too moistly self-admiring nor too jokey. Rebellion is a serious matter, after all. If you sound too eager to stiff your Government, your local party may try to de-select you.

The House will expect you to be mildly rude to the Opposition but not so rude that the Opposition takes genuine umbrage.

Try a personal attack on an Opposition MP who is widely regarded as an irritating bighead – i.e. Chris Bryant. That always causes general delight.

The final sin to beware of is long-windedness ( e. g. ‘ eighthly, Mr Speaker’), particularly if the amendment is being put around lunch time, as was the case yesterday when Dominic Raab (Con, Esher & Walton) proposed his amendment to the Immigration Bill.

ON all these measures, young Mr Raab did well. The House listened to him with interest and respect, even though many of his Tory colleagues will have been seething with envy.

Mr Raab wanted it to become easier for ministers to deport foreign criminals. Home Secretary Theresa May, who was at her most voluble, said that lawyers had advised her that his proposal was ‘incompatible’ with European human rights rules. Well of course. They’re lawyers!

Downing Street said it sympathised with Mr Raab’s drift and would allow its pay-roll supporters to abstain (translation: have a liquid lunch).

Labour and Lib Dems voted against Mr Raab’s amendment.

David Cameron had somehow escaped an awkward spot and it was the Lefties who were responsible for blocking the Raab amendment. The legislative minutiae may prove less important than the broad impression given, which is of the Tory backbenches being fed up with Europe. And the real upshot of the day is the world has now heard of Mr Raab.

He is a slender fellow – more skinny than might be desirable, for in politics the lean are never quite trusted.

The voice was a little thick yesterday but that may have been because he had a cold.

Raab: foreign name, eh? Could be a Swedish car, but for one letter. Yet he has a solid English manner, albeit a little lacking in whimsy, and he plainly knew his stuff legally. Clever.

That may trouble some onlookers but you do need a brain to push against Brussels.

As he spoke about ‘a rule 39 injunction in relation to Article Eight cases’, it became clear that he actually understood the legal small-print.

There were only perhaps two or three other people in the House who did, and it was not certain that Mrs May or Labour’s shadow minister David Hanson were among them.

Mr Raab has until now been seen as a proxy for David Davis ( Con, Howden & Haltemprice).

Mr Davis was not in the Chamber and this may have been the day Mr Raab flew his friend’s nest.

That will do him no harm. He was courteous to Sarah Teather (Lib Dem, Brent C), which is harder than you might think, and he earned the House’s distinct gratitude by refusing interventions from the insufferable Julian Huppert (Lib Dem, Cambridge), who was later to be found deep in conference with Mr Hanson.

Mr Raab may have lost his vote yesterday but he has won himself a useful personal advance. A future Cabinet minister, I’d say.