Dominic Raab
Dominic Rennie Raab is a British former politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor from September 2021 to September 2022 and again from October 2022 to April 2023. He previously served as First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Conservative Party, Raab was Member of Parliament for Esher and Walton from 2010 to 2024.
Born in Buckinghamshire, Raab attended Dr Challoner's Grammar School. He studied law at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and 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. He did not seek re-election as an MP at the 2024 general election.
In December 2024, it was announced that Raab had been appointed as a senior consultant at PLB, a marketing agency based in High Wycombe.
Early life and education
Dominic Raab was born on 25 February 1974 in Buckinghamshire. He is the son of Jean, a clothes buyer, and Peter, a food manager for Marks & Spencer. His father, who was Jewish, was born in Czechoslovakia and fled the Nazis with his family in 1938 at age six. The family arrived in Britain in 1940, having spent some time in a refugee camp in Tangiers. Raab was brought up in the Church of England, his mother's faith. He grew up in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. Raab was 12 years old when his father died of cancer.Raab attended Dr Challoner's Grammar School, Amersham, and spent a brief period as a volunteer on a kibbutz before studying law at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, where he captained the university karate team. He then studied for a Master of Laws degree at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he won the Clive Parry Prize for International Law.
Early career
After graduating from Cambridge, Raab trained professionally at the City of London law firm Linklaters, completing his two-year training contract there. At Linklaters, Raab worked on project finance, international litigation and competition law. This included time on secondments at Liberty and in Brussels advising on EU and WTO law. Raab left the firm in 2000, shortly after qualifying as a solicitorRaab worked for six years professionally as a solicitor after qualifying, in both commercial work and civil service positions for the government in the Foreign Office, before leaving the legal profession to pursue politics in 2006.
During his time as a lawyer in the Civil Service under the Labour Government until 2006, Raab's briefs included leading a team at the British Embassy in The Hague, dedicated to bringing war criminals to justice in a position closely linked to Tony Blair. After returning to London, he advised on the Arab–Israeli conflict, the European Union and Gibraltar. He defended Tony Blair against a subpoena from former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević.
On moving from the legal profession to politics in 2006, Raab's first political roles as part of the Conservative Party were as an aide to MP David Davis, and then to Dominic Grieve. When Raab was appointed Justice Secretary in 2021 he was described within the legal press as an "ex-rookie" solicitor of a major law firm.
Parliamentary career
Member of Parliament
Raab was elected to Parliament at the 2010 general election as MP for Esher and Walton with a vote share of 58.9% and a majority of 18,593.In July 2010, Raab criticised the government for opting into the EU directive on the European Investigation Order, arguing it would strain operational policing resources, and would dilute safeguards protecting British citizens from misuse of personal data and guaranteeing a fair trial.
Raab came to media attention in August 2010, after requesting that the pressure group 38 Degrees remove his parliamentary email address from their website, arguing that lobby groups sending or coordinating 'clone emails' designed to deluge MPs' inboxes detracted from their ability to correspond with constituents and help those in real need. 38 Degrees said that the email address is paid for by taxpayers' money and is in the public domain, thus they have every right to host it on their website and use it for campaigning.
In April 2011, he presented an ultimately unsuccessful Ten Minute Rule Bill proposing that emergency services and transport unions should be required by law to ensure that strike votes receive 50% support of union members. Raab argued that reform was needed to prevent "militant union bosses" holding the "hard working majority" to ransom.
In January 2012, Raab spoke in support of the coalition government's plans to cut the budget deficit, expand academy schools, repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006, and enact a Freedom Bill.
On 7 March 2012, Raab opened a debate in the House of Commons on Sergei Magnitsky and Impunity for Gross Human Rights Abuses, calling on the UK government to bring forward legislative proposals that would allow it to impose visa bans and asset freezes on state officials responsible for gross human rights abuses against individuals. The motion was supported by three former Foreign Secretaries and two former Foreign Ministers and had cross-party support and was passed unanimously by MPs.
On 30 January 2014, Raab proposed an amendment to the Immigration Bill to deport all prisoners given a sentence of a year or more. It was defeated, but allowed 99 members to voice that change was necessary to prevent immigrants convicted of crimes from using the ECHR as support to remain in the UK.
At the 2015 general election, Raab was re-elected as MP for Esher and Walton with an increased vote share of 62.9% and an increased majority of 28,616. After the election, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice under Michael Gove, with responsibility for human rights questions. In September 2015, in this capacity, he addressed representatives of the 46 other member states of the Council of Europe on the question of the UK's blanket ban on prisoner voting.
Since being elected Raab has campaigned for fairer funding for local services in Elmbridge, stronger local democracy in the running of community hospitals in Cobham, Walton and Molesey, more visible and responsive policing, and against the construction of an M25 service station at Downside.
At the snap 2017 general election, Raab was again re-elected, with a decreased vote share of 58.6% and a decreased majority of 23,298.
In February 2018, Raab advertised for an unpaid intern just ahead of a Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy publication responding to the Taylor review on insecure work. The BEIS report criticised "exploitative unpaid internships", saying "an employer cannot avoid paying someone the minimum wage simply by calling them an 'intern' or saying that they are doing an internship."
In the 2018 cabinet reshuffle Raab was appointed Minister of State for Housing and Planning.
Raab was again re-elected at the 2019 general election with a decreased vote share of 49.4% and a decreased majority of 2,743.