David Davis (politician, 1948)

David Davis (2016)

David Michael Davis (born December 23, 1948 in York ) is a British politician and member of the Conservative Party for the constituency Haltemprice and Howden. When she took office in July 2016, the British Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him to her cabinet as Minister of the newly established Ministry for Leaving the European Union . He also held this office in the May II cabinet until July 8, 2018 . Dominic Raab was his successor .

Life

Davis grew up with his grandparents in York for the first few years. When his mother married the Jewish- Polish print shop worker Ronald Davis, they moved to London.

Davis' final grades weren't good enough to secure him a place at university. To save money on retaking the exam, Davis accepted a job as an insurance clerk and joined the Special Air Service . After improving his final grades, he studied computer science and molecular science at the University of Warwick from 1968 to 1971 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science . He then attended the London Business School , which he completed in 1973 with a Masters in Economics. From 1984 to 1985 he also took advanced management courses at Harvard University .

Davis worked for the international food company Tate & Lyle for 17 years and was promoted to managing director of a Canadian subsidiary that he redeveloped.

Political career

In the 1987 general election , Davis was first elected to the House of Commons as a member of the Boothferry constituency, which later became the Haltemprice and Howden constituency. When the Maastricht Treaty was voted on in the British Parliament in 1992 , Davis emerged as a great supporter of the agreement and angered many of the staunch opponents of Maastricht in his own ranks. Davis's political rise earned him the post of State Secretary in the State Department, which he held from 1994 to 1997 (until July 5, 1995 under Secretary of State Douglas Hurd , then under Malcolm Rifkind ).

Davis then worked in the House of Commons as chairman of the finance committee. He quickly made a name for himself in this position and some conservatives considered him as a future party leader.

After William Hague's resignation, he took part in the election for chairman of the Conservative Party. He finished fourth and was named general secretary by election winner Iain Duncan Smith . His most important official act is the defection of the Conservative Party from the Monday Club because of its controversial racist positions.

At the behest of Duncan Smith, Davis was dismissed from office in 2002 and replaced by Theresa May . When Davis learned of his release, he was on family vacation in Florida; the circumstances of his dismissal, which many party members consider unacceptable, earned him expressions of sympathy from party friends. His new position was that of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's Shadow Secretary ; generally this was perceived as degradation. When Duncan Smith lost the party chairmanship in a vote of no confidence in November 2003, Davis made it surprisingly clear that he was not available for candidacy, and instead pleaded for Michael Howard . After the election, he received the post of Minister of the Interior in the conservative shadow cabinet.

In this post he succeeded in forcing the then immigration minister, Beverly Hughes, to resign in the wake of the scandal over the controls of Eastern European immigrants. It was then taken as Davis' credit that Hughes was held accountable.

When Davis' merit, it was also true that his party their attitude to project the Labor Party , identity cards reintroduce changed, and from then faced such plans. The main arguments cited were the high costs of the project and the restriction of personal rights. Davis was convinced that becoming aware of the costs involved and the not yet fully developed concept of the ID card would result in widespread public rejection.

Davis has a reputation for being ultra-conservative. In November 2003, he spoke out in favor of reintroducing the death penalty . He is hostile to the European Union. He was in favor of maintaining Section 28 , which banned district governments from distributing material positively portraying homosexuality and which was finally abolished in 2003. When his homosexual party mate Michael Brown was photographed with his 20-year-old boyfriend while on vacation in 1994 (he was only 21 years old at the time), Davis offered to help. Davis is also striving to limit legal immigration and resolutely combat illegal immigration . In the 2005 House of Commons election , he was the target of the Liberal Democrats' “beheading campaign” . The campaign aimed to weaken the conservatives by dismantling their leadership. This project failed and Davis was able to expand his lead to over 5000 votes.

On June 12, 2008, he resigned from his mandate. He was protesting against the 'Counter-Terrorism Act 2008' passed by the House of Commons the day before, which was supposed to allow suspects to be arrested for 42 days without a judicial decision. The law is part of a steady erosion of civil rights. Davis won the election in his constituency following his resignation on July 10, 2008; he had no serious opponent. On October 13, the House of Lords removed the 42-day rule from law.

Candidate for the party leadership in 2005

Davis was the favorite in the election of the party leader in the fall of 2005. After his speech at the Conservative Congress did not get the desired response, his campaign lost momentum. On October 18, 2005, the first round of four candidates took place. Davis received 62 votes, Cameron 56, Liam Fox 42 and Kenneth Clarke 38. In the second ballot, Cameron received 90, Davis 57 and Fox 51 votes; so Fox was eliminated.

In the third ballot, Davis ran against David Cameron, who was 18 years his junior . Despite a convincing appearance in the TV duel of the BBC, Davis did not succeed in surpassing the popularity of his rival: Cameron was elected by party members with 68 percent as the new chairman of the Conservative Party. Davis kept his post as "shadow minister of the interior".

Brexit Minister

Two days before his appointment as Brexit Minister in 2016, he published a paper on Brexit. He argued that the formal exit process (see Lisbon Treaty, Article 50 ) should not be “started” too early.

On September 7, 2017, the EU Commission published minutes of a meeting in which Brexit chief negotiator Michel Barnier informed the EU Commission about the results of the first round of talks with Davis. Barnier expressed concern about Davis' commitment to the talks. Davis only appeared at the beginning and at the end of the discussion.

On the same day, Davis opened the debate on what is probably the most important law on the legal framework for Brexit: the “European Union (Withdrawal) Bill”.

David Davis resigned as Brexit Minister on July 8, 2018. Davis justified his resignation with the line agreed two days earlier by the cabinet in the Brexit negotiations with the EU. He could not follow the course of a "soft Brexit" set by Prime Minister May. According to the BBC, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Brexit Ministry, Steve Baker, has also resigned.

Web links

Commons : David Davis  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• www.daviddavismp.com
• www.conservatives.com: David Davis MP (Tories official site)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Jon Stone: David Davis named Brexit Minister in Theresa May's new Cabinet. Independent, July 13, 2016, accessed July 13, 2016 . 
2. ↑ In 1988 he published the book How to Turn Round a Company - A Practical Guide to Company Rescue. ISBN 981-3026-87-1 .
3. ↑ "perhaps the most salient example of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms" ( video of the press release )
4. ^ Politics.co.uk, June 12, 2008: David Davis resigns .
5. ↑ Labor had not nominated a candidate.
6. ↑ see also Peers throw out 42-day detention. In: BBC. October 13, 2008.
7. ↑ 2005 Conservative Candidates debate, David Cameron and David Davis. BBC, accessed July 12, 2016 (Question time, November 3, 2005 with David Dimbleby). 
8. ^ David Davis: Trade deals. Tax cuts. And taking time before triggering Article 50. A Brexit economic strategy for Britain
9. ↑ like other top politicians before him
10. ↑ PDF (p. 16)
11. ↑ see 11.28 am
12. ↑ Markus Becker: Brussels thwarts London's Ireland plan. In: Spiegel online. 7th September 2017.
13. ↑ http://services.parliament.uk/ , see also en: European Union (Withdrawal) Bill
14. ↑ Sascha Zastiral: May's power game. sueddeutsche.de, September 8, 2017.
15. ↑ Brexit Minister David Davis resigned. In: Handelsblatt. July 9, 2018.
16. ^ Brexit Secretary David Davis resigns. BBC.com, July 9, 2018.
17. ↑ May's plan . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. July 8, 2018.
18. ↑ Brexit Minister David Davis resigns . In: FAZ. July 9, 2018.