Dominic Raab

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 his English mother's faith, in the Church of England.

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.

After leaving Cambridge, Raab trained professionally at the major City of London law firm Linklaters, completing his mandatory two-year training contract at the firm.

Dominic Rennie Raab (born 25 February 1974) is a British Conservative Party politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Esher and Walton since 2010.

Dominic Rennie Raab was born on 25 February 1974 in Buckinghamshire.

He is the son of Jean, a clothes buyer, and Peter Raab, a food manager for Marks & Spencer.

Raab qualified as a solicitor in the UK under Linklaters in the year 2000, leaving the firm shortly after qualifying, also in 2000.

At Linklaters, Raab worked on project finance, international litigation and competition law.

This included time on secondments at Liberty (the human rights NGO) and in Brussels advising on EU and WTO law.

In total Raab 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.

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 (2011) and Britannia Unchained (2012).

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.

From 2019 to 2023, with a brief period out of office during the Truss premiership, Raab was deputy to prime ministers Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak – as First Secretary of State until 2021 then as Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom until 2023.

Additionally he has served in the cabinet positions of Brexit Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Justice Secretary and Lord Chancellor.

Born in Buckinghamshire, Raab attended Dr Challoner's Grammar School.

He studied law at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and then 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.

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.

A month after his resignation he announced that he would be standing down as an MP at the next general election.