The 46-year-old son of a refugee is to lead UK while PM is absent due to coronavirus

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has taken over leading the UK government while Boris Johnson is in hospital with coronavirus. The former lawyer was born in 1974, and is the son of a Czech refugee who fled the Nazis in 1938. He studied at both Oxford and Cambridge, and when working for the Foreign Office his job was to lead a team attempting to bring suspected war criminals to justice at The Hague.

A vocal supporter of Britain’s move to leave the EU, Raab was briefly the Brexit secretary under Johnson’s predecessor Theresa May, but resigned after saying he could not agree to the withdrawal deal that had been struck between her government and the EU.

The 46-year-old returned to government in July 2019, when Johnson became prime minister. Raab holds the title of first secretary of state, as well as foreign secretary, and is in effect the prime minister’s deputy.

While Johnson is incapacitated, Raab will chair emergency Cobra meetings about the coronavirus outbreak, and the cabinet. Since the UK is a parliamentary democracy, there is no need for an election to take place for him to assume the role of de facto prime minister.

Like many of the Johnson government’s key decision-makers, he was a prominent figure in the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, sent out to tour TV studios and staff up the spin rooms for debates.

Unlike Michael Gove, whose dramatic intervention in 2016’s Conservative party leadership contest has been forgiven but not forgotten, Raab is implicitly trusted by Johnson and his team. Also unlike Gove, his resignation on principle over May’s Brexit deal was seen as the ultimate test of a true believer.

Play Video 3:54 What does Dominic Raab deputising for Boris Johnson mean? – video

Raab’s own unsuccessful attempt to run for the Conservative leadership last year was masterminded by Paul Stephenson, another Vote Leave veteran. Conveniently, Raab’s no-holds-barred Brexit stance allowed Johnson to appear to be the moderate leaver during his leadership campaign.

Stephenson, who now runs a PR consultancy, Hanbury Strategy, was subsequently brought in to work on the Conservatives’ 2019 general election campaign.

And he has been given the task of sifting through potential applicants for special adviser posts in government, as Johnson’s director of communications, Lee Cain, another Vote Leaver, tries to shake up the usual recruitment process.

His involvement, like Raab’s role as designated last man standing, underlines the fact that when Johnson’s team are looking for backup, they tend to reach first for their battle-hardened comrades from the referendum campaign.