Dominic Raab wants us to know that he’s the man to negotiate with Brussels. Or at least, his friends do. Writing in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, the former Tory MP Nick de Bois recalled his time as Raab’s chief of staff at the Brexit department. It’s a paean that reaches a climax with a description of Michel Barnier ripping out his earpiece, and includes the line: “I have seen Dominic Raab look Michel Barnier in the eye and it wasn’t Dominic who blinked first.” Which is joyous news, if you use ocular moisture levels as your marker of greatness.
Not everyone agrees that Raab played a blinder in Brussels. In the recent BBC4 documentary Brexit: Behind Closed Doors, we do indeed see Barnier tell a meeting that Raab made threats Theresa May “never dared to say”, but he also claims that Raab immediately backed down when challenged. (“He immediately took his words back … he is not always into nuances, Dominic Raab.”) So much for the Art of the Deal.
But the most dangerous aspect of the War of Barnier’s Earpiece is precisely that it’s all about who said what to whom in Brussels. Team Raab is clear in its intention to present the Brexit crisis as the criterion on which we should be selecting the next prime minister. And yes, that is clearly the most imminent crisis facing the country. But as Brexit continues to suck the oxygen from all other areas of government policy, there is a danger of electing a prime minister whose domestic agenda hasn’t been sufficiently examined. Yesterday’s Augar review into further education funding passed with nary a word of comment from the candidates.
We face crises as a society beyond Brexit. That should be obvious from yesterday’s row over the shameful protests by homophobic parents which are now spreading outside schools in Birmingham. The protesters, if one distils a torrent of misinformation, object primarily to an early years programme which introduces the idea that social relationships are diverse. These protesters project a narrow, reactionary version of Islam, but Tory leadership candidate Esther McVey jumped in yesterday to make common cause. Though she criticised the nature of the protests outside school buildings, McVey defended the right of parents to remove their children from classes which teach “certain forms of sex and relationship education”.
The clashes, which began at Parkfield community school in Saltley, Birmingham, are the messy, human embodiment of the abiding cultural tension of modern Britain: can we build a liberal, open society while protecting the civil liberties of people who associate on the basis of rejecting those values? When it comes to protecting children from homophobia, whether from conservative Muslims, evangelical Christians or even radical Conservative constituency associations, the answer should be clear. Every Tory leadership candidate should be asked how they would tackle the Birmingham school question. If the Tory membership still choose to elect a candidate who’s OK with this discrimination, at least the rest of us will know who we’re dealing with.
James Cleverly
The former deputy chair of the party and an under-secretary in DExEU, Cleverly has only been in parliament since 2015. The MP for Braintree announced his candidacy to his local paper saying the Conservatives needed to “look new and sound different”.
Michael Gove
The environment secretary is to pitch himself as a “unity candidate” capable of attracting leavers and remainers, as he formally declared his candidacy saying: “I believe that I’m ready to unite the Conservative and Unionist party, ready to deliver Brexit and ready to lead this great country.” But robust Brexiters in particular dislike the fact that he stayed loyal even in the final days of the crumbling May regime.
Sam Gyimah
The former universities minister is calling for a 'final say on the Brexit deal' as the only way to break the parliamentary deadlock. Gyimah is the only candidate offering a second referendum on Brexit, saying 'There is a wide range of candidates out there but there is a very narrow set of views on Brexit being discussed'.
Matt Hancock
The health secretary remains a relative outsider, but the longer the race goes on, the more he gains ground for the seemingly basic virtues of being apparently competent and broadly similar to a normal human being, albeit a particularly energetic one. A concerted effort would probably require an image consultant.
Mark Harper
The former immigration minister and chief whip was behind the controversial 'go-home' vans when working under Theresa May at the Home Office. He resigned as immigration minister in 2014after it emerged he was employing a cleaner who did not have permission to work in the UK. He later served as David Cameron’s chief whip. But he has not served in Theresa May’s government and has, therefore, sought to cast himself as the candidate who offers 'fresh thinking.
Jeremy Hunt
Fears that the foreign secretary would be another overly woolly compromise choice were hardly assuaged when after a set-piece speech he seemed unable to outline why his brand of Conservatism might appeal to voters.
Sajid Javid
The home secretary still has the same weaknesses: he is an uninspiring speaker and some worry he is too fond of headline-grabbing, illiberal political gestures. But he is almost as ubiquitous as Liz Truss, and clearly believes this is his time.
Boris Johnson
The out-and-out favourite, so popular with the Tory grassroots that it would be hard for MPs to not make Johnson one of the final two. He has been relatively quiet recently, beyond his regular Telegraph column, but this is very deliberate.
Andrea Leadsom
The former House of Commons leader, who left Theresa May as the last candidate standing when she pulled out of the previous leadership race in 2016, has decided to have another tilt at the top job, saying she has the “experience and confidence” to “lead this country into a brighter future”. But even with her staunch Brexiter tendencies, she would be seen as an outsider.
Kit Malthouse
The housing minister is credited as the convener of both Conservative leavers and remainers to develop a compromise on May’s withdrawal agreement. He said there was a “yearning for change”. The 52-year-old is a former deputy mayor of London and entered the Commons in 2015 when David Cameron’s Conservatives won a majority. His name was given to the “Malthouse compromise” – a proposal drawn up by backbenchers from leave and remain wings of the Tory party, which would have implemented May’s Brexit deal with the backstop replaced by alternative arrangements.
Esther McVey
The former work and pensions secretary, who quit last year over May’s Brexit plans, has launched her own in-party campaign group/leadership vehicle called Blue Collar Conservatism, promising to make the party more amenable to voters in deprived communities – mainly through a promise to deliver a strong Brexit and policies such as diverting much of the foreign aid budget to schools and police.
Dominic Raab
Few things say “would-be leader in waiting” like a kitchen photoshoot with your spouse, and the former Brexit secretary duly obliged with this imageawash with tasteful pastel hues. He formally launched his bid in the Mail on Sunday. Among the more core constituency of Conservative MPs, Raab has been pushing hard, as has his semi-official “Ready for Raab” Twitter feed.
Rory Stewart
The cabinet’s most recent arrival – Mordaunt’s promotion to defence led to Stewart becoming international development secretary – certainly has the necessary ambition and self-belief, plus a privileged if unorthodox backstory covering Eton, Oxford, a senior role in postwar Iraq and a bestselling book about walking across Afghanistan. He remains an outsider, not least because of his remain tendencies and slightly 2010 view of compassionate Conservatism.
And those not in the running
Sir Graham Brady, Penny Mordaunt and James Brokenshire are yet to declare their intentions. Liz Truss and Amber Rudd have ruled themselves out.
Among other senior figures not expected to run are Brandon Lewis, Chris Grayling and Philip Hammond. Gavin Williamson’s recent sacking after the Huawei leak inquiry will also surely rule him out as an option this time around.
Some leadership candidates have publicly criticised McVey. Last night, Kit Malthouse responded with a pointed celebration of the LGBT+ Conservatives group; the defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, who is likely to officially launch her run next week, tweeted her support for the “age-appropriate” No Outsiders programme.
Mordaunt is also one of the few candidates who clearly grasps that the Conservative party needs a comprehensive policy offer, rather than just more Brexit rows. In an article published on the Conservative Home website yesterday, she criticised the May government for dereliction of broader policy reform: “The major challenges for our country, from social care to social mobility, still largely reside under a thick layer of dust in the ‘too tough’ in-tray.” Mordaunt began her piece by highlighting the care scandal at Whorlton Hall, in which vulnerable and disabled people were abused; Rory Stewart has also admirably promised to prioritise the crisis in social care.
But what of Raab, Boris Johnson and Steve Baker, the great Brexit hardmen? Do they have a promise for the nation beyond 31 October? Johnson, as an acerbic enemy recently told the Financial Times, “is the Kama Sutra candidate: he’s held every position on every conceivable topic.” Baker spends a lot of time talking about returning to the gold standard – he has written about carrying an ounce of silver in his pocket, just in case it gives him the opportunity to deliver the line, “I can’t afford to lose an ounce of gold”. (It’s funny if you’re into Austrian economics. Honest.)
As for Raab’s hinterland, recent days have finally established that the man who called feminists “obnoxious bigots” does not consider himself a feminist. More broadly, Raab has long been one of a counter-Cameron generation of Tories who draw direct inspiration from the anti-bureaucratic vision of Margaret Thatcher. In 2012, he teamed up with Liz Truss, Priti Patel, Kwasi Kwarteng and Chris Skidmore to write a neo-Thatcherite manifesto, Britannia Unchained.
For those of us who actually believe in small-state economics, it would be no bad thing for the Tory party to renounce the Miliband-lite market interventionalism pioneered by May. (Or perhaps we should call it socialism – which is exactly what May called it when Miliband proposed the policies she later nicked.) But within the purity of his vision, Raab never gives the impression of having charity for those left out by the economic survival of the fittest. Just prior to the publication of Britannia Unchained, a row kicked off about a line in the book which alleged that, “Once they enter the workplace, the British are among the worst idlers in the world.” Many suggested the line was written by Truss. In fact, as I confirmed when researching Truss for The Honourable Ladies, Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith’s forthcoming collection of essays on female MPs, it was written by Raab.
What would a Raab government look like, beyond the glorious point at which the “details man” delivers a sunshine Brexit? We can make guesses, and those guesses don’t yield a gentle landscape. But we must ensure that every candidate in this contest is asked for a vision for the nation, not just a negotiating strategy for Brussels. There is life beyond Brexit.
• Kate Maltby writes about theatre, politics and culture
