Dominic Raab is obviously furious about his latest departure from government. If his letter of resignation didn’t make that clear enough, a subsequent opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph spelled out his complaints about both the process and the outcome.
Does Rishi Sunak agree? Reading between the lines of his own letter, he might. It is long on praise for the outgoing justice secretary; and decidedly brief on the circumstances that precipitated his resignation. Yet, ultimately, both men have to shoulder the lion’s share of the responsibility.
This is not just a question of Raab’s conduct. It was his decision to promise to resign if a single allegation of bullying against him was upheld. He might have cause now to rue offering such a hostage to fortune, but offer it he did.
Likewise, it was ultimately a political decision by Sunak to accept his resignation. Today’s report was a finding of fact with no automatic consequences, and the ultimate authority to interpret and enforce the ministerial code rests with the prime minister.
The code, a relatively recent invention, isn’t quite the hallowed text that some make it out to be. The cabinet is accountable to parliament and, through parliament, to the nation. That necessarily limits the extent to which normal HR procedures can operate – it would be problematic, from a democratic perspective, if ministers’ ultimate fate rested in the hands of officials.
Yet politicians seem sometimes to want to have their cake and eat it, and complain bitterly about how their treatment differs from the processes of a normal complaints procedure or employment tribunal when the results don’t go their way. That doesn’t mean that there might not be flaws in the process, and we should not let our judgment be skewed by the fact that it only tends to be those found guilty of misconduct who complain. A minister who has been acquitted is not likely to denounce the process that acquitted them, whatever their private thoughts.
But it does mean that Raab’s complaints need to be put in context. It was the prime minister, not Adam Tolley KC, who pushed him out. As to why Sunak made that decision, the political calculation is relatively clear.
One of his big priorities since taking office has been drawing a clear line between his government and that of Boris Johnson, which was brought down in large part by an entirely self-inflicted series of scandals and pratfalls – most obviously, the attempt to get Owen Paterson off the hook.
Labour knows this sort of Doctor Who-like regeneration of the government is a risk, which is why its latest political attacks have focused on the prime minister. The last thing Sunak wants is to do anything that would help make the “same old Tories” charge stick.
Moreover, any Tory with a sense of their own history knows that a slow drumbeat of scandal can doom a government even with plenty going for it. John Major was, to the end, much more popular than his party, and under the chancellor Ken Clarke the government had delivered several years of strong economic growth. Yet so overpowering was the sense of fin de régime by 1997 that none of it mattered.
Sunak has not acted as decisively as he might in this case; the announcement was expected last night, and the delay was naturally filled by unhelpful speculation he could have avoided. But he has at least avoided the Johnson playbook. There has been no excruciating, days-long rearguard action; no ministers have been humiliated by being sent out to hold the line in the TV studios, only to be contradicted hours later when the government changed its mind.
And while it is not ideal to swell yet further the ranks of the embittered Tory MPs on the backbenches, Raab is a longtime ally of the prime minister, and the tone of their exchange suggests he can hold out at least the hope of a return to the cabinet at some point, if he behaves himself.
The one issue which may test this is the fate of the British bill of rights. A pet project of the former justice secretary, this legislation is unloved even in conservative legal circles and has few other champions. It was iced when Liz Truss replaced him last year.
If the same thing happens again, will Raab be content to sit quietly as the main plank of his legacy is confined to the rubbish heap?
Henry Hill is deputy editor of ConservativeHome
