What do we know about Dominic Raab, and what does it tell us about how he might approach his new job as Brexit secretary? Prediction is a fool’s game in Brexit Britain, but as this hardcore leaver settles behind his desk, Raab’s controversial ideology may offer some clues.

Dominic Raab: bullish Brexiter with outspoken reputation Read more

Brexit poses a serious challenge to many of the rights we take for granted, including workers’ rights and our right to equality, which is not protected by a written constitution. Many of those rights that we enjoy today are in very substantial measure the product of our membership of the European Union, underpinned and developed over 40 years through laws passed and case law developed with British input. Once we leave the EU, any of those rights that originate with our EU membership, for example working time protections and the right to equal pay for work of equal value, are subject to potential removal or restriction by a future government so inclined.

And Dominic Raab arrives into his new job with the credentials of someone who may well be so inclined. Our new Brexit secretary is a man who believes the time has come for men to burn their briefs. He has called for an end to obnoxious “feminist bigotry”, and thinks we’ve already sorted equality – for women anyway – so the real cause of advancement should be men’s rights. According to him, we shouldn’t be worried about the gender pay gap because “men work longer hours, die earlier but retire later than women.” In fact, it’s discrimination against men we should be getting exercised about: “from the cradle to the grave, men are getting a raw deal”.

Play Video 0:28 Dominic Raab to step up no-deal Brexit plans – video

Raab’s regressive views aren’t limited to gender. He has a long history of decrying the “excessive protections” of workers’ rights in favour of the rights of business. He has consistently made clear his contempt for regulation. Raab expressly compared Britain to the “rising” power of Singapore in a 2011 report called “Escaping the Straitjacket”. and argued that the “burden of employment regulation” was a “dragging anchor” on the British economy. He called for scrapping the requirement for small businesses to pay those aged under 21 the minimum wage, renegotiating the UK’s treaty obligations with the EU on workers’ rights, and securing a total opt out from European working time regulations.

These positions, once considered extreme, now have a seat at the head of the table. For all Theresa May’s assurances that workers’ rights would not be diminished by Brexit, her government inexplicably refused to include that commitment in the EU Withdrawal Act. There’s already been a play by one Tory MP to abolish working time rights. A cynic might say a worsening economic climate sets the scene for a slow but steady culling of rights which we will be told we can no longer afford. Raab’s justification for scrapping these hard-won employment rights was that in the context of a struggling economy, we should put unemployed young people before the rights of those in employment: a dishonest either/or that assumes the only way to create jobs is a race to the bottom on employment rights.

But isn’t Raab a champion of civil liberties, some might ask? It’s true that he’s been very critical both of New Labour’s track record on civil rights, and of Theresa May’s “snooper’s charter”. But that all sits in the context of a lawyer who has a fervent dislike of both the European court of human rights, and the Human Rights Act, which he has unsuccessfully sought to dismantle through the introduction of a British bill of rights. It’s a curious, cherrypicking approach: he seems to believe in an individual’s right to certain liberties, without recognising that they must sit within a wider, enforceable system of rights that provide remedy against state abuse of power.

Despite some appearances to the contrary, Raab is, at heart, an ideologue with dangerous convictions. Notwithstanding May’s guarantees that it won’t happen, Brexit could jeopardise longstanding workplace rights and reverse progress on equality, including on women’s rights. His appointment as the government’s top Brexit negotiator should have us all very worried.

• Schona Jolly is a London-based international human rights and equalities lawyer and writer