Robert Backlund says there were “disagreements” when he and Dominic Raab were in Cabinet, following reports that Raab tried to remove him as Secretary of Wales last year while in politics. An unnamed Bucklund ally told The Times that Raab’s actions after Bucklund publicly criticized his plans for the UK Bill of Rights were very strange and very powerful, but the former minister did not consider Raab’s behavior to be bullying. Another source told Buckland that he had spoken to Rishi Sunak about an incident that occurred in August during the last few weeks of the Boris Johnson administration.
Questioned on LBC on Monday morning about the report, Buckland did not deny that Raab had told him he would have to be sacked or resign if an article he wrote criticizing the bill of rights was published as it breached collective cabinet responsibility. “I don’t want to rake back through the coals of what happened last summer,” said Buckland, who stayed on as Welsh secretary in Liz Truss’s brief government but is now a backbench MP. “Dominic and I have a disagreement about his bill of rights, clearly he wasn’t going to agree with the article that I did write in the Telegraph. I was talking about the government to come – that is the government post-Boris Johnson – and felt that it was entirely appropriate to do that.
Raab’s position as deputy prime minister and justice minister is in jeopardy following allegations of bullying and intimidation by at least 24 officials, which he vehemently denies. The allegations are being investigated by senior employment attorney Adam Tolley, who was appointed by Sunak in November.
