Ex-deputy PM Dominic Raab becomes the latest MP to join the Tory exodus at the next election amid fears that resurgent Lib Dems could overrun marginal Blue Wall seats
- Mr Raab claimed he was ‘concerned’ about the pressures his job put on his family
- His seat of Esher and Walton has long been a key target of the Liberal Democrats
Dominic Raab is to quit as an MP at the next election, becoming the latest Tory to step down rather than risk losing their seat.
The former deputy prime minister became the most high profile figure to reveal they were standing down rather than fight the election expected next year.
More than 30 are now planning to depart from frontline politics – or seek a different, safer seat – rather than fight what could be a losing battle.
Mr Raab’s marginal seat of Esher and Walton in Surrey has long been a key target of the Liberal Democrats. They are increasingly confident they can overturn his 2,743 majority from 2019 when the country goes to the polls next year. His majority at the 2017 election was more than 23,000.
The party is targeting Remain-backing affluent Tory seats in the London suburbs and Home Counties, known as the Blue Wall.
Just a month after he quit the Cabinet over bullying allegations, Mr Raab told his local Conservative association that he would not seek re-election.
Mr Raab, who has also served as foreign secretary, justice secretary and Brexit secretary, said he had become ‘increasingly concerned over the last few years about the pressure the job has placed on my young family’. His sons are aged 10 and 8.
A Lib Dem spokesman said: ‘We will be fighting hard at the next election to finally give the people of Esher and Walton the strong local champion they deserve.’
Dominic Raab (pictured last month) will stand down as an MP at the next general election, it has emerged. He announced his decision not to run for reelection just a month after he quit the Cabinet over bullying allegations
More than 30 Tory MPs have announced they will not run at the next election. *Matt Hancock has lost the Tory whip
Mr Raab’s marginal seat of Esher and Walton in Surrey has long been a key target of the Liberal Democrats. They are increasingly confident they can overturn his 2,743 majority from 2019 when the country goes to the polls next year.
But Councillor John Cope, the Conservative group leader on Elmbridge Council in the seat, said: ‘I’m sorry to see Dom step back after being a brilliant local MP. He’s helped tens of thousands of people and secured investment for our area, including two new schools.
‘I’ve seen first-hand however the nasty toxic campaign the Liberal Democrats have waged against him, so I can respect his personal decision to protect his family after 14 years of impeccable service to Esher and Walton.’
In a letter to Peter Szanto, chairman of Esher and Walton Conservative Association, dated May 19, Mr Raab said: ‘I am writing to let you know of my decision to step down at the next General Election.
‘It has been a huge honour to represent the Conservatives, since 2010, in this wonderful constituency. Thank you for your steadfast support and tireless efforts, alongside all the teamwork and hard graft put in by our superb officers, councillors and members.’
The letter, seen by The Telegraph, went on: ‘I will continue to carry out all my responsibilities to my constituents, and provide every support in campaigning, so that we win here next year – which I am confident we can do under this Prime Minister’s leadership.’
Mr Raab entered Parliament in 2010, and went on to hold a number of ministerial posts.
He resigned as deputy prime minister last month over bullying allegations from civil servants.
An independent probe by Adam Tolley KC upheld two of eight complaints against him after finding he engaged in an ‘abuse or misuse of power’ that ‘undermines or humiliates’ while foreign secretary from 2020 to 2021.
Mr Raab’s conduct in the department had a ‘significant adverse effect’ on one colleague and he was also found to have been ‘intimidating’ to staff by criticising ‘utterly useless’ work while justice secretary.
But it cleared him of shouting or swearing at staff, or raising his arms in a threatening manner – some of the complaints made about him. It also revealed some of the complainants had never even met him, but were supporting colleagues.
The report suggested staff had been upset by Mr Raab’s ‘inquisitorial, direct, impatient and fastidious’ style, which included criticising their work to their face and interrupting them in meetings.
He subsequently released his resignation letter after having previously committed to doing so if the report found against him. He argued the findings of the report and apologised for causing any unintended stress or offence.
But Mr Raab said the inquiry was ‘flawed’ and warned it ‘set a dangerous precedent’ for effective government with a low threshold for what constituted bullying
He joins a slew of senior Tories, including former chancellor Sajid Javid and ex-environment secretary George Eustice, announcing their exit plans amid a polling slump.
Former health secretary Matt Hancock, who was a Conservative until he lost the whip over his I’m A Celebrity appearance, and Dehenna Davison, seen as a rising star in the Tory party, are also among the 30 Tories to be quitting the Commons.
Dominic Raab (seen leaving his home in Esher, Surrey last month) said in his resignation letter that he had become ‘increasingly concerned over the last few years about the pressure the job has placed on my young family’
Dominic Raab, pictured with his wife Erika in June 2019 during his Tory leadership run, was first elected as an MP in 2010
Mr Raab has had a political career has been dogged by controversy. His exit from Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet comes less than two years after he was sacked as foreign secretary, after failing to cut short a summer holiday while Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.
It is a major fall from grace for a man who was the de facto prime minister as recently as 2020, when he stood in for the hospitalised Boris Johnson during the Covid pandemic.
The father-of-two, who is married to a Brazilian marketing executive called Erika who used to work for Google, has sought to create something of a ‘hard man’ image in Westminster.
His website once boasted that he ‘holds a black belt 3rd dan in karate and is a former UK Southern Regions champion and British squad member’.
He captained the karate club at Oxford University where he studied law and was also a boxing blue as a member of the institution’s famous amateur boxing club.
Mr Raab is clearly proud of his time as a university boxer, having previously handed a picture of him in his shorts and vest to a TV company to use for a profile of him when he ran for the leadership of the party in 2019.
At the time he said he continued to train at a boxing club in Thames Ditton and has a poster of Muhammad Ali in his House of Commons office.
In 2006, when he was appointed chief of staff to fellow Tory David Davis, the former Special Forces reservist said Mr Raab’s karate black belt impressed him more than his two Oxbridge degrees – the second came in the form of a Masters from Cambridge.
Mr Raab’s bulging muscles and athletic frame leap out of a photo taken during his days as an Oxford University boxing blue in 1995
In 2019 he said he continued to train at a boxing club in Thames Ditton and has a poster of Muhammad Ali in his House of Commons office.
Mr Raab, first elected as the Conservative MP for Esher and Walton in 2010, had to wait five years before getting a proper ministerial job.
And after slowly climbing the Whitehall ladder he finally broke into the Cabinet in July 2018 after receiving the call from Theresa May to be her new Brexit Secretary following the resignation of David Davis.
However, he would only last until November of the same year as he also quit in protest at the then-PM’s Brexit plans – just like his predecessor.
Having entered the Tory leadership contest in late May 2019, he was quickly eliminated but swiftly announced he was supporting Boris Johnson’s candidacy.
He was then subsequently appointed Foreign Secretary and First Secretary of State on July 24, 2019.
However, he spent little more than a year in the job. He was widely pilloried in August 2021 when it emerged he refused to cut short a luxury holiday in Crete while Kabul was taken by the Taliban, sparking a massive airlift of westerners and their allies likened to the fall of Saigon.
The claim was strongly denied by friends of Mr Raab, who insisted that he was assured by Mr Johnson that he could stay with his family until the end of the weekend.
But he was moved to justice the following month and a damning report by MPs later said a fundamental lack of planning and preparation by Mr Raab and senior officials meant the withdrawal from Afghanistan was ‘a disaster and a betrayal of our allies’. They said the incompetence may have cost lives.
While foreign secretary, Mr Raab was soon thrust into handling the Transatlantic fall-out over the death of British teenager Harry Dunn, who was killed when his motorbike crashed into a car outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on August 27 last year.
The fact Mr Dunn’s parents tried to heckle Mr Raab at a constituency hustings event was indicative of how well the family felt he dealt with obtaining justice for their son as the government tried and failed to persuade the US to extradite the teenager’s alleged killer.
Mr Raab also had to manage the thorny issue of repatriating children of British jihadis.
Mr Raab’s exit from Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet comes less than two years after he was sacked as foreign secretary. He is pictured alongside the Prime Minister earlier this year
Early on in his parliamentary career Mr Raab sparked a furious row after he wrote an article in which he argued ‘feminists are now amongst the most obnoxious bigots’.
He refused to apologise and stuck by his comments, defending them last year when he was challenged on them during the Tory leadership battle.
He said he stood by what he had said because he believed it is ‘really important that in the debate on equality we have a consistency and not double standards and hypocrisy’.
Mr Raab has also said he is ‘probably not’ a feminist, sparking a further backlash.
He found himself again at the centre of a storm of controversy in May 2017 after claiming that people who use food banks are not typically in poverty but have an occasional ‘cashflow problem’.
Critics labelled the remarks ‘stupid and deeply offensive’.
He also got into hot water in 2019 after he said he would keep open the option of suspending Parliament in order to prevent MPs blocking Brexit.
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