The rise of Raab. . . hardman Brexiter who has become UK’S de facto Prime Minister
HE is the new de facto Prime Minister but few will know anything about the man now running the UK Government while Boris Johnson is incapacitated in hospital.
The rise of 46-year-old Dominic Rennie Raab has been nothing short of meteoric. After only a cumulative 12 months in Cabinet, he now finds himself in the leading role, chairing its Covid19 briefings.
Born and raised in the Buckinghamshire stockbroker belt, Mr Raab is the son of a Jewish refugee, who fled Czechoslovakia in 1938 following the Munich Agreement, which led to parts of the country being run by Nazi Germany.
After attending a local grammar school, he took law degrees at Oxford and Cambridge and went into private practice but by 2000 he had joined the Foreign Office, covering a range of briefs, including bringing war criminals to justice.
From 2006, he worked for fellow Eurosceptic David Davis, the then shadow home secretary, and at the 2010 General Election took the safe
Surrey commuter seat of Esher and Walton with a 18,593 majority but he spent the Coalition years on the backbenches.
It was only after David Cameron’s 2015 election victory that Mr Raab, a father-of-two, began his ascent up the ministerial ladder becoming the minister for civil liberties. Although he lost his Government job when Theresa May took over from Mr Cameron following his resignation post the EU referendum, the Surrey MP was back in Government a year later as justice minister .
A key factor in his subsequent rise was being on the winning side. Like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, he was a true believer in breaking away from what he regarded as a wasteful EU. He once said: “We’ll be better off if we’re freed up to trade more energetically with the growth markets like Latin America and Asia. It will be good for job creation and also cut prices in the stores.”
The rising star had clearly impressed Mrs May and when his former boss, Mr Davis, resigned as Brexit secretary over the prime minister’s withdrawal strategy, Mr Raab took over. But within six months he too had become disillusioned and resigned.
EU sources nicknamed him “the Turnip”, an apparent play on raap, the Dutch word for the vegetable; the suggestion being Mr Raab’s Brussels counterparts were unhappy with his negotiation strategy.
Often portrayed as a hard man – he is a karate black belt – the ex-cabinet minister threw his hat in the ring when Mrs May was eventually forced out but was quickly eliminated. However, he threw his weight behind the frontrunner and subsequent winner: Mr Johnson.
To the surprise of many, the new PM elevated Mr Raab to the glamour role of Foreign Secretary, and more than that, he made him First Secretary of State, effectively his deputy.
Having aspired to lead the Government following Mrs May’s departure from No 10, the failed candidate suddenly finds that “events” have determined to put him in the role; albeit for an unknown period.