AT FIRST glance, the new man with the task of taking Britain out of the European Union seems remarkably similar to the old one. Dominic Raab, who succeeded David Davis as secretary for the Department for Exiting the European Union (DEXEU) after the latter resigned on Sunday night, has a reputation as something of a hard man, just like his predecessor. Both are keen Brexiteers and campaigned to leave the EU. Both have dedicated themselves to championing civil liberties throughout their career. Mr Raab even once worked as Mr Davis’s chief of staff. There are, however, differences.

Whereas Mr Davis painted an idyllic vision of Brexit, Mr Raab has been upfront that the process may be difficult. The destination is more important than the time it takes to arrive, Mr Raab has argued. “If the bridge is a bit rocky, or takes a bit more time, that’s one thing,” he said in a recent interview. “What we want to know is that in the end we get there.” Mr Raab’s former colleagues label him hard-working, which is by no means a universal description of Mr Davis. More fundamentally, Mr Raab felt able to support Theresa May’s plan to keep Britain in the single market for goods and agriculture. Mr Davis did not and so resigned.

Although an ardent Brexiteer, Mr Raab has shown himself to be more adaptable than some of his more hardline colleagues. He supported a transition period, whereby Britain will follow EU rules for a limited period after it has left the bloc, while some Brexiteers howled. “I’m willing to be and understand the need to be flexible and pragmatic,” Mr Raab has said. “We want a durable situation.”

What he shares with his Brexit-inclined colleagues is a tendency to take the long view. In “The Assault on Liberty: What Went Wrong with Rights”, a book he published in 2009, Mr Raab reaches back into deep recesses of English history for modern meaning. Organisations such as the EU and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg disturbed Britain’s unique version of liberty, wrote Mr Raab: “The British idea of liberty, developed over 800 years, is now caught between conflicting tides, cast adrift from its natural moorings.” With this in mind, Brexit is simply a matter of righting a historic wrong.

Aged 44, Mr Raab had long been tipped for a cabinet post. After studying law at Oxford, he began his career as a lawyer and diplomat in the Foreign Office before entering politics, taking a safe seat in Surrey in 2010. Junior roles in the Ministry of Justice followed, from 2015 until earlier this year, when he was appointed minister for housing. He is a keen boxer and has a black belt in karate, even if the hobby left him requiring a hip replacement at 36. (“I can punch and cycle but not kick or run,” he says.)

Until now, Mrs May had been in no hurry to promote Mr Raab to the top table. The pair have clashed before. In 2011 Mr Raab accused feminists of “obnoxious bigotry” towards men, who he claims sometimes have a “raw deal”. This did not sit well with Mrs May, who pointedly responded that such comments were “not the way forward”. But she had few choices for Mr Davis’s replacement. Mr Raab’s appointment maintained the balance between Remainers and Leavers in cabinet.

It also shows how Brexit overshadows British politics, leaving other problems to fester out of sight. Mr Raab’s old brief of housing is the foremost domestic issue in Britain. Yet Mr Raab’s successor will be the fifth housing minister since 2015, because of the ministerial carousel triggered by Brexit. While big-name resignations from the cabinet dominate the headlines, it is Mr Raab’s change of job that demonstrates the damage already done by Brexit to British politics.

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