DOMINIC Raab jumped to the top of the list of names to replace Theresa May yesterday as the Tory earmarked for years as a future PM quit as Brexit Secretary.

The former high-flying lawyer and karate black belt - dubbed one of the “big brains” of the Tory party - quit just 129 days after being brought into prop up the Government.

2 Mr Raab quit the Cabinet because he couldn't back the PM's Brexit divorce deal Credit: Rex Features

The MP for Esher and Walton, 44, was a figurehead for Vote Leave during the 2016 referendum. Mrs May didn’t offer him a job in her new government following the referendum but was drafted in as a Justice Minister a year later after her disastrous 2017 General Election.

And a year later he finally got the promotion to Cabinet he had long awaited - drafted in to replace David Davis, who he once served as chief of staff in opposition.

Mr Raab’s speech to Tory conference was seen as a leadership pitch - revealing his father escaped from the Holocaust in World War II and vowing to fight anti-Semitism in Jeremy Corbyn’s party until his dying breath.

His Czech-born Jewish father escaped to Britain in 1938 as a refugee.

2 There are suggestions Theresa May could face a leadership contest Credit: EPA

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Mr Raab, who studied law at Oxford and then Cambridge before becoming a solicitor, is married to a Brazilian marketing executive and the pair live in Thames Ditton in Surrey with their two children.

In the 2016 leadership contest Mr Raab initially backed Boris Johnson - but immediately jumped to Michael Gove’s campaign after he withdrew.

But after becoming the first Cabinet minister to quit over the Brexit divorce deal yesterday, he has put himself in prime position to become the leadership contender Brexiteers can rally around.

Dominic Raab quizzed on future of Theresa May and if he wants to be PM in first interview since quitting as Brexit Secretary