A rundown of my meeting with Dominic Raab.

1. It was heated.

2. He is as arrogant in person as he appears in the media

3. He did not like being challenged.

4. He accused @tbramadan of saying something that was ‘nonsense’ so @tbramadan called out his own nonsense

/1

5. Asked about illegalities of http://Vote.EU  and Vote Leave, he said “just because there were some illegalities it doesn’t mean the whole thing should be vitiated” and elucidated that “there is always some law-breaking in every general election but result remains”

/2

6. Asked about the effectiveness and transparency of a referendum vote which did not present the options of a) remain on current terms b) remain on the renegotiated terms agreed with EU in Feb 2016, c) leave on WTO d) leave but e.g. stay in customs union, he glossed over.
/3

7. He denied ‘voting for’ TM’s deal in MV3. He lambasted me for not reading his speech setting out his rationale, accusing me of having the nerve to come and call him out without reading it, and was unhappy when I pointed out the net effect was the same, regardless of motive.

/4

8. Asked about the comparability of the GFA with a no-deal exit, he countered that it wasn’t incompatible. He said “the bigger question is whether the government’s deal is a threat to GFA”. The same deal that he effectively backed in MV3- he denied backing it but temper rose.

/5

9. One to remember for the future, when asked about anticipated period of uncertainty and lead-in period to perceived benefits, he opined that there would be a “3-6 month buffeting period as we saw through the transition”. Sunlit uplands after 6 months, people!

/6

10. His rationale for economic optimism is based on his own ‘research’- he was unable to confirm any particular source. However, he explained that “the Bank of England forecasted that we would enter recession if we even voted to leave” I.e. the experts were wrong

/7

11. The alleges that the polls remain aligned with the 2016 result, citing Yougov as one source. Have not fact checked this but will do so. Suspect this is not entirely true.

/8

12. I called him out for saying, on the one hand, that we had to “respect the will of the people” by implementing the referendum vote yet, on the other hand, that the public opinion has shifted further in favour of Brexit.

/9

10. Everything he did for the Vote Leave campaign was designed to keep Farage out of power apparently.

11. If we don’t deliver Brexit the people will, effectively, revolt. I told him that, to use the terminology of the leave campaign, we would not be cowed “project fear”.

/10

12. I expect he didn’t much like speaking to me. I guess this may align with his political view of (some) feminists being “obnoxious bigots” and that “men get a raw deal” (Politics Home article, 2011).

13. I am left shaking with anger & needing to vent by way of catharsis.

/end

Whilst I didn’t record the meeting between Dominic Raab and me, I took contemporaneous notes of his answers in my trusty Harry Potter notebook...

I’ve been trying to decipher my notes pertaining to “too much store placed in US” c.f. trade deals...

... and these were the (somewhat naively prepared) questions I prepared to ask him at our meeting...

Last page of my prep notes. For posterity.

This lists his benefits for #EsherandWalton and the country as a whole of leaving the EU. Becoming a leader in global free trade being one (); cutting unspecified EU red tape another (); being a “Self-governing democracy (); and lowering food prices (). Oh Dominic.