Raab pulls no punches in bid to save ‘country on its knees’
SUNDAY POLITICAL EDITOR
Just a year ago, Dominic Raab had never been a member of the Cabinet. Now he is a front-runner for the Conservative leadership, with 10 former ministers publicly backing a well-advanced campaign to succeed Theresa May. The 45-year-old is, he admits, an “underdog”, but insists his relative inexperience around Mrs May’s Cabinet table is an advantage.
“I don’t think that this leadership contest should be a stitch-up by the so-called big beasts,” he says, presumably referring to rivals such as Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt. “I think the approach that got us into this mess is not going to get us out. That’s why we need a change of approach and of vision.”
Last month, in a unilateral move that irked rival camps, Mr Raab launched a “clean” campaign pledge, as part of which he urged contenders to sign a commitment to avoid speaking ill of each other.
However, in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the former Brexit Secretary insists the contest should be “robust on the substance”, and proceeds to attack an approach to Brexit taken by some of his rivals – notably Mr Gove, who was his boss for a year at the Ministry of Justice.
Mr Gove, who was appointed environment secretary by Theresa May in June 2017, has said that he would not be “wedded” to the Oct 31 exit date from the EU if more time was required to reach a new deal. Mr Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, has said he would only take the UK out of the EU without a deal “in extremis”.
Brexiteer MPs, whose support all of the main candidates are attempting to court, were furious when Theresa May ruled out a no-deal Brexit taking place on March 29, a move they believe removed any prospect of Brussels making eleventh-hour concessions to her deal.
Mr Raab, a former Foreign Office lawyer who was elected in 2010, states: “All of those candidates who are suggesting things that should be taken off the table like no deal, or are leaving open the possibility of an extension or are saying they won’t do this or that, I think are undermining the strength of our negotiating position in Brussels. If you want to get the deal that can allow us to move on, you’ve got to stop weakening our position and weakening our credibility.” He adds: “There’s a certain naivety about some of the suggestions. I’m not going to take that approach – I’ve got far too much experience negotiating from my time training as a lawyer in the City, the six years as a Foreign Office lawyer negotiating, bilaterally and multilaterally, including working in the EU, and certainly my experience as Brexit secretary.
“Any signs of weakness that the candidates telegraph will be seized upon and exploited by the EU. We need to up our game, which means being less naive, and being absolutely resolute about our intention and our resolve to leave on Oct 31. It seems to me that I’m the only candidate in this race that is clear about that.”
Last week Mr Raab provoked fury among pro-EU MPs for refusing to rule out a temporary shutdown of Parliament in order to avoid the Commons preventing a no-deal exit on Oct 31, if the EU refused to renegotiate Mrs May’s deal. He states: “I actually don’t think proroguing would prove necessary. But the one thing I’m not going to do is rule things out.”
Mr Raab cites his work as a minister in the Ministry of Justice as proof of an ability to successfully take on Europe.
“I went out to the Council of Europe in September 2015, when we were told by everyone that if we didn’t give prisoners the vote we would be kicked out the Council of Europe … I went out and, very quietly, without making a song and dance, just said, very respectfully, that this wasn’t something the UK was going to do.”
Today Mr Raab is announcing plans to toughen up community sentences – punishments imposed on offenders as an alternative to a spell behind bars.
Currently, he says, there are 70,000 offenders carrying out community sentences, around half of which are only required to meet one requirement, such as abiding by a curfew or carrying out unpaid work.
“I think we need to change the sentencing guidelines to create a presumption in favour of more intensive and more intrusive requirements, unless a court decides that actually it’s unnecessary, or wouldn’t add anything,” he says.
Mr Raab also indicates his support for government action to protect Northern Ireland veterans from the never-ending threat of legal action over events in the Troubles.
“What I do want to see is some finality and some certainty,” he says. “If you look at the sacrifice made by troops over there during the Troubles, and it is absolutely right to say that should be accountability for wrongdoing, but I do worry that so many years on many of those are still living in a period of uncertainty and limbo, which is just unfair, inherently unfair. It’s quite un-British as well.”
Mr Raab says the campaign has indeed been “clean” to date. He does, though, take issue with a claim circulating in Westminster that he is
‘I think the approach that got us into this mess is not going to get us out. That’s why we need a change’
planning to support Mr Gove if he is knocked out of the race, and encourage his supporters to switch to the former justice secretary’s campaign to help scupper Mr Johnson’s bid.
“I think that was a little bit of light mischief put out by Boris’s camp, and it’s total rubbish,” Mr Raab says.
He refuses to accept claims by supporters of Mr Johnson that the former foreign secretary is best placed to beat Jeremy Corbyn in a general election.
“If you look, for example, at the recent polling, if we’re talking about bringing the country back together, I actually polled the strongest of the two of us in relation to remain voters, and voters in Scotland, which may seem counter-intuitive.”
Figures issued by Lord Bell, the Tory PR guru backing Mr Johnson “also showed that I would take us ahead of Labour in the polls. And that’s with, at this stage, compared to Boris, much lower name recognition.”
A major reservation MPs voice about Mr Gove is the question of whether he can be trusted after he deserted Mr Johnson’s leadership campaign to start his own eleventhhour effort during the 2016 contest.
Asked if he trusts his old boss, Mr Raab launches into an extensive description of how he had a “fantastic year” working with him at the Ministry of Justice, “and I think he’s the social reformer of our generation”.
He adds: “But the question really here is about leadership of the government and the country. And who is best placed with the unwavering
conviction and the experience to navigate the tricky road ahead strewn with elephant traps, between now and the end of October to get Brexit done.
“And I think I’m the most credible candidate and the most reliable and trusted candidate to be that steady hand on the wheel …”
Still, he hasn’t quite said that he does trust Mr Gove.
“Oh, look, I can trust Michael. And I like him. When I was a minister he was great to work with. And he was brave and very innovative and very decent as well.
“So I don’t have a bad word to say about Michael Gove. Or Boris.”
So would he be prepared to serve under either man?
“The reason I’m standing to be Prime Minister is it hurts me to see the country on its knees in this rut, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get us out of it. And it’s about the best interests of the country, not me.”