LONDON—After a five-month investigation into multiple allegations of bullying against the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, the report has landed at Number 10.
According to a spokesperson, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is carefully considering the findings of the independent report into the bullying allegations against Raab. The Prime Minister is known to be a judicious reader of documents and will thoroughly review the report before reaching any conclusions.
While it is expected that the Prime Minister wants to release the report as received, he is the ultimate arbiter of the rules that ministers have to follow. Therefore, it will be up to Rishi Sunak to decide what happens to Dominic Raab as a result of this report. It is expected that a decision will be made later today, or potentially tomorrow, depending on how much time the Prime Minister needs to consider the findings.
Conversations are being held in government circles about what will happen if Raab stays or if he is forced to leave his position. The feeling in Westminster is that this is an imminent decision.
Raab is bracing himself for the report to be pretty damning, as there are plenty within the government who have long thought that this would be very hard for him to politically survive.
Senior lawyer Adam Tolley has not been employed to definitively answer if Raab’s behavior breached the ministerial code, but rather to assemble the facts about what happened and to speak to Raab and those that complained about his behavior, as well as those who witnessed it. The Ministry of Justice received allegations about Raab mistreating staff, with sources alleging that he was curt, intimidating to officials, and that there were occasions when he made people cry. Raab has repeatedly denied these claims, but there has been a significant amount of testimony about the impact that his behavior seemingly had on some people who worked for him.
Despite being one of his most loyal lieutenants, Raab’s future is ultimately Rishi Sunak’s decision.
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