Introduction
Dominic Rennie Raab was born in 1974 in Buckinghamshire, England. His father was a Czechoslovak Jew who fled to the UK in 1938 at the age of six. His father had a simple job as a supermarket clerk and his mother worked in the clothing industry. Raab grew up with his mother, who was Church of England. Raab is married to Erika Rey, a Brazilian marketing executive who until 2020 worked for Google. They have two children and live in Thames Ditton, Surrey. Raab holds a black belt, third dan in karate.
Education
Dominic Raab attended the prestigious Oxford University and received a law degree. He later received a master’s degree from Cambridge University, thus attending both major universities in the country. During his Oxford years, he was, of course, the captain of the university karate team.
Employment
After graduating from university, Raab worked as an international lawyer, as well as in political consulting and international relations. One of the highlights of his resume is his work in Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority, as an adviser to one of the negotiators of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during the Oslo talks. His job, of course, was to advise on World Bank projects in the West Bank.
Political Posts
In 2000, during Tony Blair’s term in office as leader of the Labour Party, he joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) as a lawyer and consultant. Ten years later, he became so prominent as one of the young figures in the Conservative Party that he ran for a safe parliamentary seat in Surrey.
Political Positions
Before Raab entered the mainstream of politics with Brexit, he was best known for his controversial rhetoric about social right-wing conservatism. Shortly after he was elected to Parliament in 2011, he attacked female rights activists, saying feminists are now one of the most annoying fanatics in the UK. He claimed that men were more oppressed than women, saying men are in a worse situation than women from the cradle to grave. They work longer hours than women, die sooner, but retire later. Rob never backed down. Everyone in Westminster knows that Dominic Raab does not pursue the interests of women in this country, said Jess Phillips, a Labour MP and feminist.
Brexit
In 2012, Raab co-authored a book entitled Britannia Unchained; a book written in support of Brexit, promising a highly righteous economic future for the country: a country with complete domination of the free market and no economic oversight by the government. Raab rose to prominence as one of the most influential supporters of his country’s plan to leave the EU, known as Brexit. On 9 July 2018, following the resignation of David Davis, Raab was appointed Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, and was later made a deputy by Theresa May after just two weeks to oversee domestic preparations while May would be in charge of actually meeting with EU officials.
Raab has the formal title of being the second person in the cabinet; but in practice, he cannot be considered the most influential figure in the cabinet after Johnson. He played little part in the pandemic crisis, except to try to bring back British citizens who were trapped in different parts of the world.
