Dominic Raab

Overview

The son of Czech refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, Dominic Raab is the self-styled ‘tough guy boxer’ who is now in charge of the Ministry of Justice and Deputy Prime Minister. He previously served as Foreign Secretary between 2019 and 2021.

As First Secretary of State in 2020, Raab was required to deputise for Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he suffered in hospital from COVID-19. This marked the peak of Raab’s recent meteoric rise to date.

Dominic Raab has a black belt in Karate and is a keen amateur boxer.

Political Career

In 2010, Raab won the ‘safe’ Tory seat of Esher and Walton, and he continued to hold the seat in 2015 and 2017 with substantial margins.

However, Raab’s constituency in South West London is located in an area of the country where the Liberal Democrats have tended to poll well, and after a determined attack by the Lib Dems, Raab’s majority was reduced to only 2,743 in 2019.

Esher and Walton is now a marginal seat and, no doubt, the Lib Dem’s will look to complete the scalp at the next election. Just as other high profile figures such as Michael Portillo, Ed Balls, and Nick Clegg have all become unstuck in the past, it is certainly possible that the night of the next election might be a publicly uncomfortable one for Mr Raab.

Raab was first appointed to the Cabinet as Theresa May’s Brexit Secretary in 2018. Before this, Raab held junior Government roles at the Ministry of Justice (2017-2018) and as Minister of State for Housing (2018-2019).

A hard-line Brexiter, he was appointed Foreign Secretary in 2019, after himself standing in the Conservative leadership election that Summer.

Demoted from the Foreign Office in the September 2021 reshuffle, was said to have been very angry at the move. It came just a month after Raab had attracted criticism for being on holiday at the time that the Taliban were seizing control of Afghanistan.

Political Views

Raab was a prominent Brexiteer in the EU referendum campaign and continued to espouse hard-Brexit values in his subsequent ministerial posts. After the publication of Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, Raab refused to support her deal, resigning from his post as Brexit Minister in 2018.

Raab championed his hard-Brexiteer credentials throughout the 2019 Conservative Party Leadership election. He set himself aside from the other candidates by arguing that proroguing Parliament should not be ruled out so to push through a no-deal Brexit.

Not afraid to say what he thinks, in 2011 Raab commented: ‘From the cradle to the grave, men are getting a raw deal. Feminists are now amongst the most obnoxious bigots’.

In 2017 Raab commented that people who use food banks are not typically in poverty but have an occasional ‘cashflow problem’.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Raab maintained he would not ‘take the knee’ because it was ‘a symbol of subjugation and subordination’.

Background

How old is Dominic Raab?
Dominic Rennie Raab was born on the 25th of February 1974.

What did Dominic Raab do before politics?
Born and raised in Buckingham, Raab went to Dr Challoners Grammar School in Amersham.

He studied law at Oxford University and then later took a Masters at Cambridge University. At Cambridge, Raab won the Clive Parry Prize for International Law.

Raab began his career as an international lawyer at Linklaters, working on project finance, international litigation and competition law.

In 2000, Raab joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as an adviser on legal issues. Twenty years later as a politician, he became Foreign Secretary Raab, in charge of the whole Department.

In 2006, Raab was appointed Chief-of-Staff to the long time Conservative MP David Davis. Mr Davis, himself a former SAS reservists, was said to have been more impressed with Mr Raab’s black belt in Karate, than his Oxbridge education.

Is Dominic Raab married?
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is married to Brazilian Erika Rey, who formerly worked as a marketing executive at Google. The couple have two sons.

Things you might not know about Dominic Raab

He has an Oxford Blue in Boxing
Raab is a black-belt in karate and was captain of the karate club at Oxford University. He ‘holds a black belt 3rd Dan in karate and is a former UK Southern Regions champion and British squad member.

Raab also enjoys boxing. He possesses an Oxford ‘Blue’ in boxing and is said to continue to train from time to time at the Thames Ditton Boxing Club in his constituency.

He was said to have a picture of the famous boxer, Muhammad Ali, in his Commons office.

He defended Tony Blair against Milošević
Raab joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as a civil servant in 2000. Raab was posted to The Hague to head up a new team focused on bringing war criminals to justice in 2003. One of these figures was the Former President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic.

In 2006, Raab defended Tony Blair against a subpoena from former Yugoslav President Milošević.

His father fled Germany in 1938
Raab’s parents were Czech refugees who fled from the Nazis in 1938. His father, Peter, died of cancer when Raab was just 12. Describing how he coped with his father’s death, Raab has regularly referred to how an involvement in sport helped restore his confidence.