British deputy prime minister Dominic Raab resigned from the government on Friday following an independent investigation into complaints that he bullied colleagues, the latest scandal to force out one of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak\u2019s top ministers.
\nThe loss of the third senior minister over their personal conduct in the last six months will damage Sunak\u2019s efforts to revive the governing Conservative Party\u2019s fortunes and is a major embarrassment as he had entered Downing Street in October promising a government of integrity.
\nRaab resigned in a letter to the prime minister before the report was made public, his departure a setback to Sunak just two weeks ahead of English local council elections where his Conservatives are predicted to fare badly.
\nSunak\u2019s office declined immediate comment.
\n\u201cI called for the inquiry and undertook to resign if it made any finding of bullying whatsoever,\u201d Raab\u2019s letter said. \u201cI believe it is important to keep my word.\u201d
\nAs deputy prime minister, Raab had no formal powers but stepped in for the prime minister if he was away from parliament or incapacitated. However he was a close political ally of Sunak and helped launch his campaign to be prime minister last summer.
\nThe resignation will also do little to improve the public perception of his government following the scandal-ridden tenure of Boris Johnson and the chaotic economic policies that brought down Liz Truss after less than two months.
\nComplaints
\nThe months-long investigation into Raab\u2019s behaviour heard evidence from multiple government officials about complaints of bullying at three different departments.
\nRaab, who was also justice minister, requested the investigation in November following formal complaints about his behaviour by government officials. He said he felt \u201cduty bound\u201d to accept the outcome of the inquiry but also staunchly defended his conduct.
\nHe said the report had concluded he had not once sworn, shouted or physically intimidated anyone in four and a half years, and had dismissed all but two of the claims against him.
\nRaab said setting the threshold for bullying so low \u201cset a dangerous precedent for the conduct of good government\u201d.
\nThis will \u201chave a chilling effect on those driving change on behalf of your government \u2014 and ultimately the British people\u201d, he said in his letter.
\nRaab referred to the two incidents where there was a finding of bullying against him \u2014 one at the foreign office in dealing with a senior diplomat\u2019s handling of the Brexit negotiation over Gibraltar, and one where he gave critical feedback during an earlier stint at the Ministry of Justice from 2021 to 2022.
\nAnother of Sunak\u2019s senior ministers, Gavin Williamson, was forced to resign in November after bullying allegations, and the prime minister sacked Conservative Party chair Nadhim Zahawi in January after he was found to have broken the ministerial code over his openness about his tax affairs.
\nSunak is facing his own investigation by parliament\u2019s standards watchdog into his behaviour over whether he properly declared his wife\u2019s shareholding in a childcare company which stands to benefit from new government policy.
\nThe son of a Czech-born Jewish refugee who fled the Nazis in 1938, Raab studied law at Oxford University before becoming a lawyer working on project finance, international litigation and competition law. He became a member of parliament in 2010 and has had several senior ministerial jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
British deputy prime minister Dominic Raab resigned from the government on Friday following an independent investigation into complaints that he bullied colleagues, the latest scandal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6238,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}