Dominic Raab has resigned from his roles as the UK’s deputy prime minister and justice secretary over claims of bullying.
Raab said in a statement on Friday that he felt “duty bound” to resign after an inquiry found he had acted in an “intimidating” manner, but he also claimed the findings “are flawed and set a dangerous precedent for the conduct of good government.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak accepted Raab’s resignation, saying it’s “clear that there have been shortcomings in the historic process that have negatively affected everyone involved.
“We should learn from this how to better handle such matters in future,” he wrote in a letter to Raab.
The prime minister said he was “grateful” for Raab’s “steadfast personal support” of his leadership campaign last year, and paid tribute to his “dedication, commitment, and loyalty” as deputy prime minister.
Raab requested an independent investigation in November last year after formal complaints were made alleging he had bullied civil servants.
The complaints followed media reports that claimed the minister had been “very rude and aggressive” towards civil servants and that he had created a “culture of fear” at the Ministry of Justice (MOJ).
When he called for the inquiry, Raab denied any wrongdoing and vowed to “cooperate fully” with the investigation and respect “whatever outcome” Sunak would decide on.
Downing Street on Thursday confirmed Sunak had received the report into the allegations (pdf) from senior lawyer Adam Tolley KC, and that Sunak was considering the findings.
The prime minister’s spokesperson also said Sunak still had “full confidence” in Raab.
‘Intimidating Behaviour’
The report, which was published on Friday, said Raab “acted in a way which was intimidating, in the sense of unreasonably and persistently aggressive conduct in the context of a work meeting” when he made a “legitimate management choice” as the foreign secretary.
The report said Raab also mentioned “the Civil Service Code in a way which could reasonably have been understood as suggesting that those involved had acted in breach of the Civil Service Code,” which “was a form of intimidating behaviour, in the sense of conveying a threat of unspecified disciplinary action.”
It also said Raab didn’t target anyone or intend to threaten anyone, but should have realised that his mentioning the Civil Service Code “could well have been understood as a threat.”
Regarding group complaints in relation to the MOJ, the report said the former justice secretary had “acted in a manner which was intimidating” by making unconstructive critical comments on a number of occasions.
The examples cited showed that Raab complained about the lack of “basic information” in documents and “obstructiveness” on the part of officials whom he perceived to be resistant to his policies, and referred to some items of work as “utterly useless” and “woeful.”
The report said Raab didn’t intend to target anyone or to upset or humiliate, but the unconstructive criticisms, combined with a habit of interrupting people, “is likely to be experienced as intimidating, in the sense of being unreasonably difficult to deal with, and plainly was so experienced by some individuals.”
The report said Raab’s style of working was “inquisitorial, direct, impatient, and fastidious,” but said there was “no persuasive evidence” that he had shouted or sworn at anyone.
Raab: ‘Dangerous Precedent’
In his letter of resignation to Sunak, Raab said he had promised to resign if the report “made any finding of bullying whatsoever,” adding, “I believe it is important to keep my word.”
Paying tribute to “the many outstanding civil servants” he had worked with, Raab claimed the threshold of bullying was set too low.
“First, ministers must be able to exercise direct oversight with respect to senior officials over critical negotiations conducted on behalf of the British people, otherwise the democratic and constitutional principle of ministerial responsibility will be lost. This was particularly true during my time as foreign secretary, in the context of the Brexit negotiations over Gibraltar, when a senior diplomat breached the mandate agreed by Cabinet,” he wrote.
In an article published in The Telegraph, Raab said he had “made changes to the personnel” of the negotiation team after finding out the diplomat’s alleged wrongdoing, and that the change “involved no demotion or longer-term detriment.”
“Second, ministers must be able to give direct critical feedback on briefings and submissions to senior officials, in order to set the standards and drive the reform the public expect of us,” Raab wrote in the resignation letter.
The former minister said he’s “genuinely sorry for any unintended stress or offence” any officials felt “as a result of the pace, standards, and challenge” he brought to the MOJ, but argued that the inquiry has “set a dangerous precedent” by “setting the threshold for bullying so low,” saying it will “encourage spurious complaints against ministers, and have a chilling effect on those driving change.”
He also called on Sunak to order an independent review of “a number of improprieties that came to light during the course of this inquiry,” including the “systematic leaking of skewed and fabricated claims to the media in breach of the rules of the inquiry and the Civil Service Code of Conduct, and the coercive removal by a senior official of dedicated private secretaries” from his MOJ private office in October of last year.
Raab wrote in The Telegraph that an official removed the private secretaries upon Raab’s return to the MOJ, saying they were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Raab also claimed that the official asserted that private secretaries who didn’t want to leave were suffering from Stockholm syndrome.
Raab stated that the claims had been “stored up for over three months, most over eight months, some for over four years—and then submitted in a coordinated way,” and labelled the inquiry a “Kafkaesque saga.”
Labour: Allowing Raab to Resign Shows ‘Weakness’
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner has accused Sunak of dithering and delaying after Downing Street confirmed the report had been received.
Speaking to broadcasters on Friday, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said no one want to hear Raab’s “whining about having to resign,” and that the prime minister showed “weakness” by not sacking Raab.
“Why didn’t he sack him? And now it’s left for Dominic Raab to resign because the prime minister hasn’t acted,” the opposition leader said.
Starmer said Sunak’s “indecision and weakness” in allowing Dominic Raab to resign “goes to the heart” of the “failure” of successive Tory governments.
PA Media contributed to this report.
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Lily Zhou